An heated debate lately spread widely on social media, following a user asked a query for females: which would you prefer find yourself stranded in the woods alongside a male or with a bear? Like all the best thought experiments, it revealed vastly opposing perspectives and experiences, illuminated chasms between the sexes, and was likely cause an existential crisis for anyone pondering about it for too long. There was also the almost inevitable follow-up in which some males came online to tell women how stupid they were to select the animal and proceeded to describe the punishments they merited for it. This at minimum enabled the women who had been hesitating about their decision to decide with renewed assurance.
Portraying the Scenario
The Bear-Cooking Tale skillfully brings to life this clever small premise. This six-episode series is adapted on Scandinavian writer the novelist’s 2018 novel with the identical title (translated in 2020 for English readers). It follows the tribulations of a pastor (the lead actor) and his family as they come to start a new ministry within Kengis, an isolated settlement in Sweden’s north, during the mid-19th century. Within a community lacking many joys, not one of the locals especially warm to his puritanical approach to drinking and revelry, but it is his protection of impoverished people – particularly the indigenous Sami, from which comes the preacher’s adopted son the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in societal fairness and equality that places him on a collision course with the Kengis local authorities.
The Antagonists
Soon in cahoots against him are the lawman the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the intimidating mill owner the matron Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed early on firing a newly injured worker with minimal compensation as he remains gibbering at the sight of his pulped hand, and all others who profit from a community who can be bought with some containers of the whisky sold by the creepy shopkeeper Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). However, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes once itinerant painter the artist Beronius appears on the scene (the performer, providing a performance of exceptional discomfiting power). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, they still serve as potent archetypes.
Plot Progression
With the seeds of conflict planted, the moment arrives to proceed with the storyline. The maid employed by the doctor, Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), duly goes missing in the forest. Indications of her flight and animal scratches upon a trunk get discovered but she is completely absent. Rumours and anxieties 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 somewhat peculiar show. It creates a fine sense of the bleakness that allows suspicion and bias and dark myths flourish based on local folklore that animals might be dominated or possessed by the souls of men. And it doesn’t romanticise the tough existence led by the villagers, where brutality, be it from nature or people, always looms on the edges, poised to explode. Yet the personas seldom evolve beyond symbols – or perhaps, while the conflicts amid fairness and revenge, logic and religion, virtue and evil escalate, representative characters in a fable – which stops the entire production fully coming to life.
Tonal Inconsistencies
Additionally, exist the many stylistically clashing moments where the pastor’s ability to discover clues and determine Hilda’s fate turns nearly laughable. He positions himself observing shattered containers and strands of fur within storage sheds as a fusion of Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (neither of whom had to lick a mixture of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to agree that, yes, it was definitely coagulated blood on the site), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and extracting a corpse from a bog.
Opposing Goals
The village elite are determined proving that Hilda met her end by an animal, perhaps to preserve the peace, or possibly to protect a fellow elite. The pastor is bent on establishing the opposite, and the proof so rapidly 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 Essex Serpent, with its evocation of the opposing allures and terrors presented by science and belief. In its low points, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Nevertheless, it does seem to offer the answer to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”
To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ now.
