A heated discussion recently went viral across online platforms, after a user posed the question to women: would you rather find yourself stranded in a forest with a man or a bear? Similar to the most engaging hypothetical scenarios, it exposed wildly different worldviews and life encounters, illuminated divides among genders, and was likely cause a deep personal dilemma if you thought on it for too long. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable coda in which men of a certain stripe took to the internet to inform females how stupid they were to select the animal and proceeded to describe the consequences they merited for that choice. This at minimum allowed the women who had been hesitating over their choice to make it with renewed assurance.
Dramatising the Setup
The Bear-Cooking Tale effectively dramatises this nifty little setup. The six-part drama is based from Scandinavian writer Mikael Niemi’s 2018 novel of the same name (translated two years later for English readers). It follows the tribulations of a clergyman (the lead actor) and his family as they come to start a new ministry in Kengis, an isolated settlement in Sweden’s north, in 1852. Within a community lacking many joys, not one of the inhabitants particularly appreciate his strict approach to drinking and dancing, but it is his defense of the poor – particularly the indigenous Sami, from which hails the pastor’s foster child the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his belief in social justice and equality that places him in direct opposition against the Kengis powers that be.
The Antagonists
Soon in cahoots opposing him are the lawman Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (the actress), observed initially dismissing a recently mangled worker with a month’s pay while he is still babbling upon seeing his crushed hand, and anyone else who profit from a populace easily swayed for a few bottles of liquor sold by the creepy store owner Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). However, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness pales when itinerant painter the artist Beronius appears in the story (Simon J Berger, delivering a performance of exceptional unsettling intensity). If they are – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, they still serve as potent archetypes.
Narrative Development
With the seeds of tension sown, the moment arrives to get down to narrative business. The maid employed by the doctor, Hilda (the actress), duly vanishes from the woods. Signs of her escape and bear markings upon a trunk get discovered but she is completely absent. Rumours and fears of a man/maid-eating bear roaming the woodland circulate, yet the clergyman holds a different view that he and Jussi embark to verify.
An Odd Beast
This Bear Drama is a slightly odd beast. It creates a fine sense of the desolation that allows suspicion and bias and dark myths thrive from the native legend that animals might be dominated or inhabited by the spirits of men. And it doesn’t idealising the tough existence experienced by the villagers, in which brutality, be it from the wild or mankind, lurks constantly at the periphery, waiting to erupt. But the characters seldom evolve more than ciphers – or maybe, while the conflicts between justice and revenge, logic and religion, virtue and evil intensify, representative characters in a fable – which stops the whole thing fully coming to life.
Stylistic Shifts
Additionally, there are the many stylistically clashing moments in which the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and determine Hilda’s fate turns almost risible. He positions himself observing broken milk pots and strands of fur in hay barns like a combined the Belgian detective the English sleuth – alongside Jussi a rather hapless assistant figure (none of whom had to lick a blend of blood droplets and the boss’s spit to agree that, yes, it was clearly coagulated blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and pulling a body from a bog.
Opposing Goals
The local leaders are determined proving that Hilda met her end by a bear, maybe to protect the calm, or possibly to protect one of their own. The pastor is bent on establishing the opposite, and the proof so rapidly accumulates in his favour that again the show’s credibility and the viewer’s patience get strained. At its best, the series is reminiscent of the TV version a few years ago of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the competing attractions and fears presented by science and belief. In its low points, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it does seem to offer the answer to that debated question: “Ladies, take the bear.”
The series is on Disney+ now.
