An intense discussion recently went viral on social media, after someone posed a query to women: which would you prefer be lost in the woods alongside a male or a bear? Similar to the most engaging hypothetical scenarios, it revealed vastly opposing perspectives and life encounters, illuminated divides among genders, and was likely to induce an existential crisis if you thought on it for too long. There was also the predictable coda where men of a certain stripe came online to inform females how foolish they were for choosing the bear and went on to describe the consequences they deserved for it. This at minimum allowed the women who were uncertain about their decision to decide with renewed assurance.
Portraying the Setup
The Bear-Cooking Tale skillfully brings to life this clever little setup. The six-part drama is adapted from Swedish author the novelist’s 2018 book of the same name (rendered in 2020 for an English audience). It follows the tribulations of a pastor (the lead actor) and his household as they come to start a new ministry in Kengis, a remote village in northern Sweden, in 1852. Within a community with few pleasures, none of the locals particularly warm to his strict approach to alcohol and revelry, but it is his defense of the poor – especially the native Sami population, from among whom comes the preacher’s adopted son Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in societal fairness and equality that sets him on a collision course against the Kengis local authorities.
The Antagonists
Soon collaborating opposing him include the lawman Brahe (the performer), the intimidating factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (the actress), seen initially firing a newly injured worker with a month’s pay as he remains babbling upon seeing of his pulped hand, and all others who benefit from a populace easily swayed with some containers of liquor sold by the creepy store owner the merchant Lindmark (the actor). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness pales once itinerant painter Beronius arrives in the story (Simon J Berger, providing a performance of exceptional unsettling intensity). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – only a little more than caricatures, they are at least potent archetypes.
Plot Progression
With the seeds of conflict planted, it is time to proceed to narrative business. The maid employed by the doctor, Hilda (the actress), accordingly goes missing from the woods. Signs of her escape and animal scratches on a tree get discovered yet she remains nowhere to be seen. Rumours and fears regarding a human-devouring bear prowling the woods 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 slightly peculiar show. It conjures a strong impression of the bleakness that allows suspicion and bias and dark myths flourish from the native legend that animals can be controlled or inhabited by the souls of humans. It avoids romanticise the hardscrabble life experienced by the villagers, in which brutality, whether that of the wild or mankind, lurks constantly on the edges, waiting to erupt. Yet the personas rarely become beyond symbols – or maybe, while the conflicts amid fairness and vengeance, rationality and religion, virtue and wickedness intensify, emblematic figures within a moral tale – which stops the whole thing truly becoming immersive.
Stylistic Shifts
And then, there are the many stylistically clashing instances where the pastor’s ability to discover clues and discern the maid’s destiny becomes almost risible. He positions himself looking at broken milk pots and strands of fur within storage sheds as a fusion of the Belgian detective the English sleuth – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (none of whom were required to lick a mixture of blood spatter and the boss’s spit to confirm that, yes, it was definitely coagulated blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his latest deduction and pulling a corpse out of a swamp.
Clashing Agendas
The village elite are determined proving that the maid met her end by an animal, perhaps to protect the calm, perhaps to shield one of their own. The clergyman is bent on establishing the opposite, and the evidence so quickly stacks up in his favour that again the drama’s plausibility and the viewer’s patience are tested. At its best, the series evokes memories of the TV version some years back of the author’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the opposing allures and fears presented by science and belief. 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: “Ladies, take the bear.”
The series streams on Disney+ now.
