A intense discussion recently went viral across online platforms, following someone asked the question for females: would you rather find yourself stranded in a forest with a man or a bear? Similar to the best thought experiments, it exposed wildly different perspectives and experiences, highlighted divides between the sexes, and was likely to induce a deep personal dilemma if you thought on it extensively. Additionally, there came the predictable coda where men of a certain stripe came online to tell females how foolish they had been to select the animal and went on to limn the consequences they deserved for that choice. This at minimum allowed the women who were uncertain over their choice to decide with a new confidence.
Portraying the Setup
The Bear-Cooking Tale skillfully brings to life this clever little setup. The six-part series is adapted on Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s 2018 book of the same name (translated two years later for English readers). It follows the tribulations of a pastor (the lead actor) and his family when they arrive to begin a fresh religious post in Kengis, an isolated village in Sweden’s north, in 1852. In a place with few pleasures, not one of the locals especially appreciate his strict approach to drinking and revelry, yet it is his defense of the poor – particularly the native Sami population, from among whom comes the pastor’s foster child Jussi (the young actor) – and his conviction in social justice and equality that places him in direct opposition against the Kengis powers that be.
The Antagonists
Quickly collaborating against him include the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the fearsome factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (the actress), seen early on firing a recently mangled laborer with minimal compensation while he is still gibbering at the sight of his pulped hand, and all others who profit from a community who can be bought for a few bottles of liquor sold by the unsettling store owner the merchant Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness pales when itinerant painter Beronius appears on the scene (the performer, providing a performance of exceptional unsettling intensity). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – only a little more being stereotypes, they are at least effective ones.
Plot Progression
With the seeds of conflict sown, the moment arrives to get down to narrative business. The servant employed by the doctor, the character Hilda (the actress), accordingly goes missing from the woods. Indications of her flight and bear markings upon a trunk are found yet she remains nowhere to be seen. Gossip and fears regarding a human-devouring bear prowling the woodland spread, but the pastor holds a different view which he and his ward set out to verify.
An Odd Beast
This Bear Drama is a somewhat odd beast. It conjures a strong impression of the bleakness that lets distrust and prejudice and grim legends thrive from the native legend that animals might be dominated or possessed by the spirits of men. It avoids romanticise the hardscrabble life led by the villagers, in which violence, whether that of nature or mankind, always looms at the periphery, poised to explode. But the characters seldom evolve beyond symbols – or perhaps, as the struggles between justice and revenge, logic and religion, good and evil intensify, emblematic figures within a moral tale – preventing the whole thing fully becoming immersive.
Tonal Inconsistencies
Additionally, there are the many stylistically clashing moments where the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and discern Hilda’s fate turns nearly laughable. He stands observing broken milk pots and clumps of hair in hay barns as a fusion of the Belgian detective the English sleuth – alongside Jussi a rather hapless assistant figure (neither of whom were required to taste a blend of blood droplets and saliva from his superior to confirm that indeed, it was definitely dried blood at the crime scene), before announcing his newest conclusion and extracting a body out of a swamp.
Opposing Goals
The village elite are determined proving that the maid was killed by an animal, perhaps to preserve the calm, or possibly to protect one of their own. The pastor is bent on establishing the opposite, and the evidence so rapidly accumulates supporting his view that once more the drama’s plausibility and audience tolerance are tested. At its best, the series evokes memories of the adaptation a few years ago of Sarah Perry’s The Essex Serpent, with its evocation of the competing attractions and terrors offered by science and religion. In its low points, it’s more like a bear-themed police procedural. Nevertheless, it does seem to provide the answer to the earlier query: “Females, choose the animal.”
The series streams on Disney+ now.
