A heated debate recently went viral on social media, following someone posed a query to women: which would you prefer find yourself stranded in the woods with a man or with a bear? Similar to the most engaging hypothetical scenarios, it exposed wildly different perspectives and experiences, highlighted chasms among genders, and could easily cause a deep personal dilemma if you thought about it extensively. There was also the almost inevitable follow-up in which men of a certain stripe came online to tell females how stupid they had been to select the bear and went on to limn the consequences they merited for that choice. This at least allowed the women who were uncertain about their decision to decide with a new confidence.
Dramatising the Scenario
The Bear-Cooking Tale effectively brings to life this clever small premise. The six-part drama is adapted on Scandinavian writer the novelist’s 2018 book with the identical title (translated two years later for English readers). It follows the struggles of a clergyman (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his household as they come to start a new ministry within Kengis, an isolated settlement in northern Sweden, in 1852. In a place lacking many joys, not one of the inhabitants especially appreciate his puritanical stance on drinking and revelry, but it is his protection of impoverished people – particularly the native Sami population, from among whom comes the preacher’s adopted son the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his conviction in societal fairness and equality that sets him on a collision course with the Kengis local authorities.
The Opposing Forces
Quickly collaborating against him include the lawman the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating mill owner Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen early on dismissing a newly injured laborer with minimal compensation as he remains gibbering at the sight his crushed hand, and all others who profit from a populace easily swayed for a few bottles of the whisky provided by the creepy store owner the merchant Lindmark (the actor). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness pales once travelling artist Beronius arrives on the scene (Simon J Berger, providing an acting turn of rare discomfiting power). If they are – like the pastor himself – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, they are at least potent archetypes.
Narrative Development
Once the foundations of tension planted, the moment arrives to proceed with the storyline. The servant from the doctor’s house, Hilda (the actress), accordingly vanishes in the forest. Indications of her escape and animal scratches on a tree are found but she is completely absent. Gossip and fears regarding a human-devouring bear roaming the woods circulate, yet the clergyman has another theory which he and his ward set out to prove.
An Odd Beast
This Bear Drama is a slightly peculiar show. It creates a fine sense of the desolation that lets distrust and prejudice and dark myths flourish from the native legend that bears can be controlled or inhabited by the souls of humans. And it doesn’t idealising the hardscrabble life experienced by the residents, where violence, be it from the wild or people, lurks constantly on the edges, waiting to erupt. But the characters rarely become beyond symbols – or perhaps, as the struggles between justice and vengeance, rationality and faith, virtue and evil intensify, emblematic figures within a moral tale – preventing the entire production truly becoming immersive.
Tonal Inconsistencies
And then, exist the many stylistically clashing moments in which the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and determine the maid’s destiny becomes nearly laughable. He positions himself observing shattered containers and strands of fur in hay barns as a fusion of Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – with Jussi a rather hapless assistant figure (neither of whom had to lick a blend of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to agree that indeed, it was definitely dried blood on the site), prior to declaring his latest deduction and extracting a corpse out of a swamp.
Opposing Goals
The village elite are determined proving that Hilda was killed by a bear, perhaps to preserve the peace, or possibly to protect one of their own. The clergyman is bent on proving the opposite, and the proof so quickly stacks up in his favour that once more the drama’s plausibility and audience tolerance are tested. In its finest moments, the series is reminiscent of the TV version some years back of the author’s The Essex Serpent, through its portrayal of the opposing attractions and terrors offered by science and religion. At its worst, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Nevertheless, it does seem to provide the response to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”
To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ now.
