An heated discussion recently went viral on social media, after a user posed the question to women: would you rather find yourself stranded in the woods alongside a male or a bear? Similar to the most engaging thought experiments, it exposed vastly opposing perspectives and life encounters, highlighted chasms among genders, and was likely cause an existential crisis if you thought on it for too long. There was also the almost inevitable follow-up where some males took to the internet to inform women how foolish they had been to select the bear and went on to describe the consequences they deserved for that choice. This at least allowed those females who had been hesitating about their decision to decide with renewed assurance.
Portraying the Setup
The Bear-Cooking Tale skillfully dramatises this nifty small premise. The six-part series is based from Scandinavian writer the novelist’s 2018 book of the same name (rendered two years later for an English audience). It traces the struggles of a clergyman (the lead actor) and his household as they come to begin a new ministry in Kengis, an isolated settlement in Sweden’s north, during the mid-19th century. Within a community lacking many joys, not one of the locals particularly appreciate his strict approach to drinking and dancing, yet it is his defense of impoverished people – especially the native Sami population, from among whom comes the preacher’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 local authorities.
The Antagonists
Soon collaborating against him include the sheriff the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the fearsome mill owner Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed early on dismissing a newly injured laborer with minimal compensation while he is still gibbering at the sight his crushed hand, and anyone else who profit from a populace easily swayed with some containers of liquor sold by the unsettling store owner the merchant Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes when travelling artist the artist Beronius arrives in the story (Simon J Berger, providing an acting turn of exceptional unsettling intensity). If they are – like the pastor himself – just slightly beyond than caricatures, they are at least potent archetypes.
Plot Progression
Once the foundations of tension sown, the moment arrives to proceed with the storyline. The servant from the doctor’s house, Hilda (the actress), duly vanishes from the woods. Signs of her escape and bear markings on a tree are found yet she remains nowhere to be seen. Rumours and fears regarding a human-devouring beast roaming the woodland spread, but the pastor holds a different view that he and Jussi set out to verify.
A Strange Creation
This Bear Drama is a slightly peculiar show. It creates a strong impression of the bleakness that allows suspicion and bias and dark myths thrive from the native legend that bears can be controlled or possessed by the souls of humans. And it doesn’t romanticise the tough existence led by the residents, where brutality, be it from nature or mankind, lurks constantly on the edges, waiting to erupt. But the characters rarely become more than ciphers – or perhaps, while the conflicts between justice and revenge, logic and religion, good and wickedness intensify, emblematic figures in a fable – preventing the whole thing fully becoming immersive.
Stylistic Shifts
And then, there are numerous stylistically clashing moments in which the clergyman’s skill to discover clues and discern the maid’s destiny becomes almost risible. He positions himself looking at shattered containers and clumps of hair within storage sheds as a fusion of Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (neither of whom had to lick a blend of blood droplets and saliva from his superior to confirm that, yes, it was clearly dried blood on the site), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and pulling a body from a bog.
Opposing Goals
The village elite are determined proving that Hilda was killed by an animal, maybe to preserve the peace, perhaps to shield a fellow elite. The clergyman is intent on proving otherwise, and the proof so quickly accumulates supporting his view that once more the drama’s plausibility 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, with its evocation of the competing allures and fears offered by rational thought and religion. In its low points, it’s more like a bear-themed police procedural. Still, it does seem to provide the answer to that debated question: “Ladies, take the bear.”
To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ currently.
