A heated discussion lately went viral across online platforms, after someone asked a query to women: would you rather be lost in a forest alongside a male or with a bear? Similar to the best hypothetical scenarios, it exposed vastly opposing perspectives and life encounters, illuminated divides between the sexes, and could easily to induce a deep personal dilemma if you thought on it extensively. There was also the predictable coda in which some males came online to tell females how foolish they were to select the bear and proceeded to limn the punishments they merited for it. This at minimum allowed those females who had been hesitating over their choice to decide with renewed assurance.
Dramatising the Scenario
The Bear-Cooking Tale effectively brings to life this clever small premise. The six-part drama is adapted on Swedish author the novelist’s 2018 book of the same name (translated two years later for English readers). It traces the tribulations 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, during the mid-19th century. Within a community lacking many joys, none of the inhabitants especially appreciate his puritanical stance on alcohol and dancing, but it is his defense of the poor – especially the indigenous Sami, from which comes the preacher’s adopted son Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his conviction in societal fairness and equality that sets him in direct opposition with the Kengis powers that be.
The Antagonists
Quickly in cahoots opposing him include the lawman the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the intimidating factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (the actress), observed early on dismissing a newly injured laborer with a month’s pay while he is still gibbering at the sight his crushed hand, and anyone else who profit from a populace who can be bought for a few bottles of the whisky provided by the unsettling shopkeeper the merchant Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness pales when itinerant painter Beronius appears in the story (Simon J Berger, providing an acting turn of rare discomfiting power). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond than caricatures, they are at least effective ones.
Plot Progression
With the seeds of conflict planted, it is time to get down with the storyline. The maid from the doctor’s house, Hilda (the actress), duly vanishes in the forest. Signs of her flight and bear markings on a tree get discovered but she is nowhere to be seen. Rumours and anxieties regarding a human-devouring bear prowling the woodland spread, yet the clergyman holds a different view which he and his ward set out to prove.
An Odd Beast
This Bear Drama is a slightly peculiar show. It creates a strong impression of the desolation that allows distrust and prejudice and grim legends thrive from the native legend that animals might be dominated or inhabited by the souls of humans. And it doesn’t idealising the hardscrabble life led by the villagers, in which brutality, whether that of the wild or mankind, lurks constantly on the edges, poised to explode. Yet the personas rarely become more than ciphers – or perhaps, while the conflicts amid fairness and revenge, logic and religion, good and evil escalate, representative characters in a fable – which stops the whole thing fully becoming immersive.
Tonal Inconsistencies
Additionally, there are the many stylistically clashing instances in which the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and discern the maid’s destiny turns nearly laughable. He stands observing broken milk pots and clumps of hair in hay barns like a combined the Belgian detective and Sherlock Holmes – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (none of whom were required to taste a mixture of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to agree that indeed, it was clearly coagulated blood on the site), before announcing his newest conclusion and extracting a body out of a swamp.
Opposing Goals
The local leaders are determined demonstrating that the maid was killed by an animal, perhaps to preserve the peace, perhaps to shield a fellow elite. The clergyman is intent on proving otherwise, and the evidence so rapidly stacks up in his favour that again the drama’s plausibility and audience tolerance get strained. At its best, the series evokes memories of the TV version a few years ago of the author’s The Essex Serpent, through its portrayal of the opposing attractions and terrors presented by rational thought and religion. In its low points, it’s more like Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Nevertheless, it appears to provide the answer to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”
The series is on Disney+ currently.
