A intense debate recently spread widely on social media, following a user posed a query to women: which would you prefer be lost in a forest alongside a male or with a bear? Like all the best thought experiments, it revealed wildly different worldviews and life encounters, illuminated chasms between the sexes, and could easily to induce an existential crisis for anyone pondering on it for too long. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable follow-up in which men of a certain stripe came online to tell women how foolish they had been for choosing the animal and proceeded to limn the consequences they deserved for it. This at minimum enabled the women who were uncertain about their decision to decide with renewed assurance.
Portraying the Setup
The Bear-Cooking Tale effectively brings to life this nifty little setup. This six-episode drama is based from Scandinavian writer the novelist’s 2018 book with the identical title (rendered two years later for an English audience). It traces the struggles of a clergyman (the lead actor) and his family as they come to start a fresh religious post in Kengis, a remote village in Sweden’s north, in 1852. In a place with few pleasures, none of the inhabitants particularly appreciate his strict approach to alcohol and dancing, yet it is his protection of the poor – particularly the native Sami population, from which comes the pastor’s foster child the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his conviction in social justice and equal rights that places him in direct opposition against the Kengis local authorities.
The Opposing Forces
Soon collaborating opposing him are the sheriff the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the fearsome mill owner the matron Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed early on dismissing a newly injured laborer with a month’s pay while he is still gibbering at the sight his crushed hand, and all others who profit from a community who can be bought for a few bottles of liquor sold by the unsettling store owner Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). However, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes when itinerant painter Beronius appears on the scene (the performer, delivering a performance of exceptional unsettling intensity). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – only a little more than caricatures, they still serve as effective ones.
Narrative Development
With the seeds of tension planted, the moment arrives to proceed with the storyline. The maid employed by the doctor, the character Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), accordingly goes missing in the forest. Signs of her escape and bear markings on a tree get discovered but she is nowhere to be seen. Rumours and fears regarding a human-devouring beast roaming the woods spread, but the pastor holds a different view that he and Jussi embark to prove.
A Strange Creation
This Bear Drama is a somewhat peculiar show. It conjures a strong impression of the bleakness that lets distrust and prejudice and dark myths thrive based on local folklore that bears might be dominated or possessed by the souls of men. It avoids idealising the hardscrabble life experienced by the villagers, in which violence, be it from nature or people, lurks constantly at the periphery, poised to explode. But the characters seldom evolve more than ciphers – or maybe, as the struggles between justice and revenge, rationality and religion, good and evil intensify, emblematic figures in a fable – which stops the entire production fully becoming immersive.
Tonal Inconsistencies
And then, there are the many stylistically clashing instances in which the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and discern the maid’s destiny becomes nearly laughable. He stands looking at shattered containers and clumps of hair within storage sheds like a combined Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – alongside Jussi a rather hapless assistant figure (neither of whom had to lick a mixture of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to confirm that, yes, it was clearly dried blood at the crime scene), before announcing his newest conclusion and pulling a corpse from a bog.
Opposing Goals
The local leaders are determined proving that the maid was killed by an animal, maybe to preserve the calm, or possibly to shield a fellow elite. The clergyman is bent on establishing the opposite, and the proof so quickly stacks up supporting his view that once more the drama’s plausibility and the viewer’s patience are tested. In its finest moments, To Cook a Bear evokes memories of the adaptation a few years ago of the author’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the opposing attractions 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 response to the earlier query: “Females, choose the animal.”
The series streams on Disney+ currently.
