A heated discussion lately went viral across online platforms, following a user asked the question for females: would you rather find yourself stranded in a forest alongside a male or a bear? Like all the best hypothetical scenarios, it exposed wildly different worldviews and experiences, illuminated chasms among genders, and was likely cause a deep personal dilemma if you thought on it extensively. Additionally, there came the predictable coda in which men of a certain stripe came online to tell females how foolish they had been to select the bear and went on to limn the punishments they deserved for it. This at minimum 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 small premise. This six-episode drama is adapted from Swedish author the novelist’s 2018 novel with the identical title (rendered two years later for English readers). It follows the struggles of a clergyman (the lead actor) and his household when they arrive to begin a new ministry within Kengis, a remote settlement in Sweden’s north, during the mid-19th century. In a place with few pleasures, not one of the inhabitants particularly warm to his strict approach to drinking and dancing, but it is his protection of impoverished people – especially the indigenous Sami, from among whom comes the pastor’s adopted son Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his belief in social justice and equality that places him on a collision course against the Kengis local authorities.
The Opposing Forces
Quickly in cahoots against him include the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (the actress), observed early on dismissing a recently mangled worker with minimal compensation as he remains gibbering upon seeing his crushed hand, and all others who profit from a populace who can be bought for a few bottles of the whisky provided by the creepy store owner the merchant Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, to be fair, Lindmark’s creepiness pales when travelling artist Beronius arrives in the story (the performer, providing a performance of exceptional discomfiting power). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, they are at least potent archetypes.
Plot Progression
With the seeds of tension planted, 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. Indications of her escape and bear markings on a tree are found yet she remains completely absent. Rumours and anxieties regarding a human-devouring bear roaming the woodland spread, yet the clergyman has another theory which he and his ward embark to verify.
A Strange Creation
This Bear Drama is a slightly odd beast. It conjures a strong impression of the desolation that allows suspicion and bias and dark myths thrive from the native legend that animals might be dominated or possessed by the souls of humans. It avoids romanticise the hardscrabble life experienced by the villagers, where violence, be it from nature or people, always looms on the edges, waiting to erupt. Yet the personas seldom evolve more than ciphers – or perhaps, as the struggles amid fairness and revenge, rationality and religion, good and wickedness intensify, representative characters in a fable – which stops the entire production fully coming to life.
Stylistic Shifts
Additionally, there are the many tonally jarring instances in which the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and discern Hilda’s fate becomes nearly laughable. He positions himself looking at broken milk pots and strands of fur in hay barns as a fusion of Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – alongside Jussi a rather hapless assistant figure (neither of whom were required to lick a blend of blood spatter and the boss’s spit to agree that, yes, it was clearly coagulated blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his latest deduction and extracting a corpse out of a swamp.
Clashing Agendas
The local leaders are bent on demonstrating that Hilda was killed by an animal, perhaps to protect the calm, perhaps to shield a fellow elite. The pastor is intent on establishing the opposite, and the evidence so quickly accumulates in his favour that once more the drama’s plausibility and audience tolerance get strained. In its finest moments, To Cook a Bear is reminiscent of the TV version some years back of the author’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the opposing allures and terrors offered by science and belief. At its worst, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Nevertheless, it does seem to offer the response to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”
The series is on Disney+ now.
