An intense debate lately spread widely on social media, following a user posed the question for females: which would you prefer be lost in a forest with a man or with a bear? Similar to the best hypothetical scenarios, it exposed vastly opposing worldviews and life encounters, highlighted chasms between the sexes, and was likely cause a deep personal dilemma if you thought about it for too long. There was also the almost inevitable coda in which some males came online to tell women how stupid they were to select the animal and went on to describe the punishments they merited for that choice. This at minimum allowed the women who had been hesitating about their decision to make it with a new confidence.
Dramatising the Scenario
The Bear-Cooking Tale skillfully dramatises this nifty little setup. This six-episode drama is adapted from Scandinavian writer the novelist’s 2018 novel with the identical title (rendered in 2020 for an English audience). It follows the tribulations of a pastor (the lead actor) and his family when they arrive to begin a fresh religious post in Kengis, an isolated village in Sweden’s north, during the mid-19th century. Within a community with few pleasures, not one of the inhabitants especially warm to his puritanical stance on drinking and dancing, but it is his defense of the poor – particularly the native Sami population, from among whom hails the pastor’s foster child the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his conviction in societal fairness and equal rights that places him on a collision course with the Kengis local authorities.
The Antagonists
Quickly in cahoots opposing him are the sheriff the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the fearsome factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (the actress), seen early on firing a recently mangled laborer with a month’s pay as he remains babbling at the sight his crushed hand, and anyone else who profit from a community easily swayed with some containers of the whisky provided by the unsettling shopkeeper the merchant Lindmark (the actor). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes once itinerant painter the artist Beronius appears on the scene (the performer, delivering a performance of exceptional discomfiting power). If they are – similar to the clergyman – only a little more than caricatures, they still serve as effective ones.
Plot Progression
With the seeds of conflict planted, it is time to get down to narrative business. The maid employed by the doctor, Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), duly goes missing in the forest. Signs of her flight and animal scratches on a tree get discovered but she is nowhere to be seen. Gossip and fears of a man/maid-eating bear prowling the woods spread, but the pastor has another theory that he and Jussi embark to prove.
An Odd Beast
This Bear Drama is a somewhat peculiar show. It creates a strong impression of the bleakness that lets suspicion and prejudice and dark myths thrive from the native legend that animals can be controlled or possessed by the souls of humans. And it doesn’t idealising the tough existence led by the residents, in which violence, whether that of nature or people, lurks constantly on the edges, waiting to erupt. Yet the personas seldom evolve beyond symbols – or perhaps, as the struggles between justice and vengeance, logic and faith, good and wickedness escalate, representative characters within a moral tale – preventing the entire production fully becoming immersive.
Tonal Inconsistencies
And then, exist numerous stylistically clashing instances in which the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and discern the maid’s destiny turns nearly laughable. He stands looking at broken milk pots and strands of fur in hay barns like a combined the Belgian detective the English sleuth – alongside Jussi a rather hapless assistant figure (none of whom were required to lick a blend of blood droplets and saliva from his superior to agree that, yes, it was definitely coagulated blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and extracting a corpse out of a swamp.
Opposing Goals
The village elite are bent on demonstrating that Hilda met her end by a bear, perhaps to protect the calm, perhaps to shield a fellow elite. The pastor is intent on proving otherwise, and the evidence so quickly stacks up in his favour that again the show’s credibility and the viewer’s patience get strained. At its best, To Cook a Bear evokes memories of the TV version a few years ago of Sarah Perry’s The Essex Serpent, with its evocation of the competing allures and terrors offered by rational thought and belief. At its worst, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Nevertheless, it appears to provide the answer to the earlier query: “Females, choose the animal.”
To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ currently.
