A heated discussion recently went viral across online platforms, following someone posed the question to women: would you rather find yourself stranded in the woods alongside a male or with a bear? Similar to the most engaging thought experiments, it revealed vastly opposing worldviews and life encounters, highlighted divides between the sexes, and could easily cause a deep personal dilemma if you thought about it for too long. Additionally, there came the predictable coda where men of a certain stripe took to the internet to tell females how foolish they were for choosing the animal and proceeded to describe the consequences they merited for it. This at least allowed those females who were uncertain over their choice to make it with a new confidence.
Dramatising the Scenario
The Bear-Cooking Tale effectively brings to life this nifty little setup. The six-part series is based on Swedish author the novelist’s 2018 novel of the same name (rendered two years later for an English audience). It traces the tribulations of a clergyman (the lead actor) and his household as they come to begin a fresh religious post in Kengis, a remote village in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. In a place lacking many joys, none of the inhabitants particularly appreciate his puritanical stance on drinking and revelry, but it is his defense of the poor – particularly the native Sami population, from among whom comes the pastor’s adopted son the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his conviction in social justice and equal rights that sets him on a collision course with the Kengis powers that be.
The Antagonists
Quickly in cahoots opposing him include the sheriff the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the fearsome factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed early on firing a recently mangled worker with minimal compensation as he remains babbling at the sight his crushed hand, and all others who benefit from a community who can be bought with some containers of the whisky provided by the creepy store owner Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, to be fair, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes once travelling artist the artist Beronius appears on the scene (Simon J Berger, delivering a performance of rare discomfiting power). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, they still serve as potent archetypes.
Narrative Development
Once the foundations of tension sown, the moment arrives to proceed with the storyline. The servant employed by the doctor, Hilda (the actress), accordingly vanishes in the forest. Indications of her escape and animal scratches on a tree are found but she is nowhere to be seen. Gossip and anxieties regarding a human-devouring beast prowling the woodland spread, but the pastor has another theory that he and Jussi embark to verify.
A Strange Creation
This Bear Drama is a somewhat peculiar show. It creates a fine sense of the desolation that allows distrust and prejudice and dark myths flourish from the native legend that bears might be dominated or inhabited by the spirits of humans. And it doesn’t idealising the hardscrabble life led by the villagers, where brutality, whether that of nature or mankind, lurks constantly at the periphery, poised to explode. But the characters rarely become more than ciphers – or perhaps, as the struggles between justice and vengeance, logic and faith, good and evil escalate, representative characters in a fable – which stops the whole thing fully becoming immersive.
Tonal Inconsistencies
Additionally, there are numerous stylistically clashing moments where the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and discern the maid’s destiny becomes almost risible. He positions himself observing broken milk pots and strands of fur in hay barns as a fusion of the Belgian detective and Sherlock Holmes – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (neither of whom were required to lick a mixture of blood droplets and saliva from his superior to agree that indeed, it was clearly coagulated blood on the site), prior to declaring his latest deduction and pulling a corpse from a bog.
Opposing Goals
The local leaders are determined proving that the maid was killed by a bear, perhaps to preserve the calm, or possibly to shield one of their own. The pastor is intent on proving otherwise, and the proof so quickly stacks up supporting his view that again the drama’s plausibility and audience tolerance are tested. In its finest moments, the series evokes memories of the adaptation a few years ago of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the competing allures and fears presented by rational thought and belief. In its low points, it resembles a bear-themed police procedural. Still, it appears to offer the answer to the earlier query: “Females, choose the animal.”
To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ currently.
