🔗 Share this article

An intense debate lately spread widely on social media, after a user posed the question to women: which would you prefer find yourself stranded in a forest alongside a male or a bear? Like all the best thought experiments, it revealed wildly different perspectives and experiences, illuminated chasms between the sexes, and was likely to induce a deep personal dilemma if you thought about it for too long. Additionally, there came the predictable coda where some males took to the internet to inform women how stupid they had been for choosing the animal and went on to limn the consequences they merited for it. This at minimum allowed those females who had been hesitating about their decision to decide with a new confidence.

Dramatising the Scenario

The Bear-Cooking Tale skillfully brings to life this clever small premise. The six-part series is based from Swedish author the novelist’s 2018 book with the identical title (rendered in 2020 for English readers). It follows the struggles of a clergyman (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his family as they come to begin a new ministry in Kengis, a remote village in northern Sweden, in 1852. In a place lacking many joys, not one of the locals especially appreciate his strict stance on drinking and revelry, yet it is his protection of the poor – especially the native Sami population, from among whom comes the preacher’s adopted son Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his belief in societal fairness and equality that sets him on a collision course against the Kengis local authorities.

The Antagonists

Soon collaborating against him include the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the fearsome factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen initially dismissing a newly injured laborer with minimal compensation as he remains babbling 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 sold by the creepy shopkeeper Lindmark (the actor). However, to be fair, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes when itinerant painter the artist Beronius arrives in the story (the performer, providing a performance of exceptional discomfiting power). If they are – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond than caricatures, they still serve as potent archetypes.

Narrative Development

With the seeds of tension sown, the moment arrives to get down to narrative business. The maid from the doctor’s house, the character Hilda (the actress), duly goes missing from the woods. Signs of her escape and animal scratches on a tree are found yet she remains completely absent. Gossip and fears regarding a human-devouring bear prowling the woodland spread, yet the clergyman holds a different view which he and his ward embark to verify.

An Odd Beast

This Bear Drama is a somewhat peculiar show. It creates a strong impression of the bleakness that lets suspicion and bias and grim legends thrive based on local folklore that bears can be controlled or possessed by the spirits of humans. And it doesn’t romanticise the hardscrabble life experienced by the residents, in which brutality, be it from nature or people, lurks constantly on the edges, poised to explode. Yet the personas seldom evolve beyond symbols – or maybe, while the conflicts amid fairness and revenge, rationality and religion, good and wickedness intensify, representative characters in a fable – preventing the entire production truly becoming immersive.

Tonal Inconsistencies

And then, exist numerous stylistically clashing instances where the clergyman’s skill to discover clues and discern the maid’s destiny turns almost risible. He positions himself looking at broken milk pots and clumps of hair in hay barns as a fusion of the Belgian detective the English sleuth – alongside Jussi a rather hapless assistant figure (none of whom were required to lick a mixture of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to agree that indeed, it was definitely coagulated blood at the crime scene), before announcing his newest conclusion and extracting a body from a bog.

Clashing Agendas

The local leaders are determined proving that Hilda was killed by an animal, maybe to protect the peace, perhaps to shield one of their own. The pastor is bent on proving otherwise, and the evidence so rapidly accumulates supporting his view that once more the show’s credibility and the viewer’s patience are tested. At its best, the series evokes memories of the TV version a few years ago of Sarah Perry’s The Essex Serpent, with its evocation of the opposing allures and fears presented by rational thought and belief. In its low points, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Nevertheless, it appears to offer the response to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”

• The series streams on Disney+ currently.