An intense discussion lately went viral on social media, following a user posed a query for females: would you rather find yourself stranded in the woods alongside a male or with a bear? Like all the best thought experiments, it exposed vastly opposing worldviews and experiences, highlighted divides between the sexes, and was likely to induce a deep personal dilemma if you thought on it for too long. Additionally, there came the predictable follow-up in which some males took to the internet to inform females how foolish they had been to select the bear and proceeded to describe the punishments they merited for it. This at least allowed those females who had been hesitating about their decision to make it with renewed assurance.
Portraying the Setup
The Bear-Cooking Tale effectively brings to life this nifty little setup. This six-episode drama is based from Scandinavian writer Mikael Niemi’s 2018 novel of the same name (rendered two years later for English readers). It traces the struggles of a clergyman (the lead actor) and his household when they arrive to start a fresh religious post in Kengis, an isolated settlement in Sweden’s north, in 1852. Within a community with few pleasures, none of the inhabitants particularly warm to his strict approach to alcohol and dancing, yet it is his protection of impoverished people – especially the native Sami population, from which hails the pastor’s adopted son the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in social justice and equal rights that sets him on a collision course against the Kengis local authorities.
The Antagonists
Quickly collaborating against him are the sheriff the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the fearsome mill owner the matron Sjödahl (the actress), seen early on dismissing a recently mangled worker with a month’s pay as he remains gibbering upon seeing of his pulped hand, and anyone else who profit from a populace easily swayed for a few bottles of liquor provided by the creepy shopkeeper Lindmark (the actor). Although, to be fair, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes when itinerant painter Beronius arrives on the scene (Simon J Berger, delivering a performance of exceptional discomfiting power). If they are – like the pastor himself – only a little more being stereotypes, they are at least effective ones.
Narrative Development
With the seeds of tension sown, the moment arrives to proceed with the storyline. The servant employed by the doctor, Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), accordingly vanishes from the woods. Signs of her escape and animal scratches on a tree are found yet she remains completely absent. Rumours and fears of a man/maid-eating beast prowling the woodland circulate, yet the clergyman holds a different view which he and his ward embark to verify.
An Odd Beast
This Bear Drama is a slightly peculiar show. It conjures 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 possessed by the spirits of men. And it doesn’t idealising the hardscrabble life experienced by the residents, in which violence, be it from the wild or people, lurks constantly at the periphery, waiting to erupt. Yet the personas seldom evolve more than ciphers – or perhaps, while the conflicts between justice and revenge, logic and religion, good and evil intensify, representative characters in a fable – which stops the whole thing fully coming to life.
Tonal Inconsistencies
Additionally, there are the many stylistically clashing instances where the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and determine Hilda’s fate becomes nearly laughable. He positions himself observing broken milk pots and clumps of hair within storage sheds as a fusion of the Belgian detective and Sherlock Holmes – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (none of whom were required to lick a blend of blood droplets and the boss’s spit to agree that indeed, it was definitely dried blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and extracting a body out of a swamp.
Clashing Agendas
The village elite are bent on proving that the maid met her end by a bear, perhaps to preserve the peace, or possibly to protect one of their own. The pastor is bent on establishing otherwise, and the proof so rapidly stacks up supporting his view that again the show’s credibility and audience tolerance get strained. At its best, the series is reminiscent of the TV version some years back of the author’s The Essex Serpent, with its evocation of the competing attractions and fears offered by science and religion. In its low points, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Nevertheless, it appears to offer the response to that debated question: “Ladies, take the bear.”
The series streams on Disney+ currently.
