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An heated discussion lately went viral across online platforms, after a user posed a query for females: would you rather be lost in a forest with a man or with a bear? Similar to the best hypothetical scenarios, it revealed vastly opposing worldviews and experiences, illuminated divides among genders, and was likely cause an existential crisis for anyone pondering about it for too long. There was also the almost inevitable coda where men of a certain stripe took to the internet to inform women how stupid they were to select the bear and went on to describe the punishments they deserved for it. This at least allowed those females who had been hesitating over their choice to make it with renewed assurance.

Dramatising the Scenario

The Bear-Cooking Tale effectively brings to life this nifty little setup. This six-episode series is based on Scandinavian writer the novelist’s 2018 book with the identical title (rendered in 2020 for English readers). It follows the tribulations of a clergyman (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his household as they come to begin a fresh religious post within Kengis, an isolated settlement in Sweden’s north, in 1852. Within a community lacking many joys, none of the inhabitants especially warm to his puritanical approach to drinking and dancing, but it is his defense of the poor – especially the native Sami population, from among whom hails the pastor’s foster child Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in societal fairness and equal rights that sets him on a collision course with the Kengis local authorities.

The Opposing Forces

Quickly collaborating opposing him are the lawman the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (the actress), seen early on firing a newly injured worker with a month’s pay as he remains babbling at the sight his crushed hand, and anyone else who benefit from a community who can be bought with some containers of the whisky sold by the creepy store owner Lindmark (the actor). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness pales when travelling artist Beronius appears on the scene (the performer, delivering a performance of rare unsettling intensity). While they remain – like the pastor himself – only a little more than caricatures, they are at least potent archetypes.

Plot Progression

Once the foundations of tension sown, the moment arrives to get down with the storyline. 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 are found yet she remains nowhere to be seen. Rumours and fears of a man/maid-eating bear prowling 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 odd beast. It creates a fine sense of the bleakness that lets suspicion and prejudice and dark myths thrive based on local folklore that animals can be controlled or possessed by the spirits of humans. And it doesn’t romanticise the tough existence experienced by the residents, where violence, be it from the wild or mankind, lurks constantly on the edges, waiting to erupt. Yet the personas rarely become beyond symbols – or maybe, while the conflicts amid fairness and vengeance, rationality and faith, virtue and evil escalate, representative characters in a fable – preventing the entire production fully coming to life.

Stylistic Shifts

And then, there are numerous stylistically clashing moments in which the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and discern Hilda’s fate becomes nearly laughable. He positions himself observing broken milk pots and strands of fur in hay barns like a combined Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (neither of whom were required to lick a mixture of blood droplets and saliva from his superior to agree that indeed, it was definitely dried blood at the crime scene), before announcing his newest conclusion and pulling a body out of a swamp.

Opposing Goals

The village elite are determined proving that the maid was killed by a bear, perhaps to protect the calm, or possibly to protect a fellow elite. The clergyman is bent on establishing the opposite, and the evidence so rapidly accumulates supporting his view that again the drama’s plausibility and audience tolerance are tested. In its finest moments, the series is reminiscent of the adaptation some years back of the author’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the opposing allures and fears presented by rational thought and belief. In its low points, it’s more like Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it appears to offer the answer to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”

• The series streams on Disney+ now.