A intense debate lately went viral across online platforms, following someone asked a query for females: would you rather be lost in the woods with a man or with a bear? Similar to the best hypothetical scenarios, it revealed wildly different worldviews and experiences, 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 almost inevitable follow-up in which some males came online to inform women how stupid they had been for choosing the animal and proceeded to limn the punishments they merited for it. This at least enabled the women who were uncertain over their choice to make it with renewed assurance.
Portraying the Scenario
The Bear-Cooking Tale skillfully brings to life this clever small premise. This six-episode drama is based on Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s 2018 novel of the same name (rendered in 2020 for English readers). It traces the struggles of a clergyman (the lead actor) and his family when they arrive to start a new ministry in Kengis, a remote settlement in northern Sweden, in 1852. Within a community lacking many joys, not one of the inhabitants especially warm to his strict approach to drinking and dancing, but it is his defense of impoverished people – especially the indigenous Sami, from among whom comes the preacher’s foster child Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his belief in social justice and equal rights that sets him on a collision course with the Kengis local authorities.
The Opposing Forces
Quickly in cahoots against him are the lawman Brahe (the performer), the intimidating factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (the actress), seen early on dismissing a recently mangled worker with minimal compensation while he is still gibbering at the sight his crushed hand, and anyone else who profit from a community who can be bought for a few bottles of liquor provided by the creepy shopkeeper Lindmark (the actor). However, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes once travelling artist the artist Beronius arrives in the story (Simon J Berger, delivering a performance of exceptional discomfiting power). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, they still serve as effective ones.
Plot Progression
With the seeds of conflict planted, the moment arrives to get down to narrative business. The servant from the doctor’s house, Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), accordingly goes missing from the woods. Signs of her escape and bear markings on a tree get discovered but she is nowhere to be seen. Rumours and anxieties of a man/maid-eating bear roaming the woods circulate, but the pastor has another theory which he and his ward set out to verify.
An Odd Beast
This Bear Drama is a slightly odd beast. It conjures a fine sense of the bleakness that lets suspicion and prejudice and grim legends thrive from the native legend that bears can be controlled or inhabited by the spirits of men. It avoids idealising the tough existence led by the villagers, where violence, be it from the wild or mankind, always looms at the periphery, waiting to erupt. But the characters rarely become more than ciphers – or perhaps, while the conflicts amid fairness and vengeance, rationality and religion, virtue and wickedness escalate, representative characters within a moral tale – preventing the whole thing truly coming to life.
Tonal Inconsistencies
Additionally, there are numerous tonally jarring moments where the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and discern the maid’s destiny becomes almost risible. He stands looking at broken milk pots and strands of fur within storage sheds like a combined Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – with Jussi a rather hapless assistant figure (neither of whom were required to lick a blend of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to confirm that indeed, it was definitely coagulated blood at the crime scene), before announcing his latest deduction and pulling a body out of a swamp.
Opposing Goals
The local leaders are bent on proving that the maid met her end by a bear, perhaps to protect the calm, perhaps to shield one of their own. The clergyman is bent on establishing otherwise, and the proof so quickly accumulates in his favour that again the show’s credibility and audience tolerance are tested. In its finest moments, the series is reminiscent of the TV version a few years ago of the author’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the competing allures and fears presented by rational thought and belief. In its low points, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it appears to provide the response to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”
The series streams on Disney+ now.
