A intense discussion lately spread widely on social media, following someone posed the question for females: which would you prefer be lost in a forest alongside a male or 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 if you thought about it extensively. Additionally, there came the predictable coda in which men of a certain stripe came online to inform women how stupid they had been for choosing the bear and proceeded to describe the consequences they merited for it. This at least allowed the women who were uncertain about their decision to make it with a new confidence.
Dramatising the Scenario
The Bear-Cooking Tale effectively brings to life this nifty small premise. This six-episode drama is adapted on Scandinavian writer the novelist’s 2018 novel of the same name (translated two years later for an English audience). It traces the struggles of a clergyman (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his household as they come to start a new ministry within Kengis, an isolated village in Sweden’s north, during the mid-19th century. Within a community with few pleasures, not one of the locals especially appreciate his puritanical stance on alcohol and revelry, yet it is his defense of the poor – particularly the indigenous Sami, from among whom hails the preacher’s foster child the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his conviction in social justice and equal rights that sets him on a collision course against the Kengis powers that be.
The Opposing Forces
Soon collaborating against him are the lawman the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (the actress), observed early on dismissing a recently mangled worker with minimal compensation while he is still gibbering upon seeing 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 the merchant Lindmark (the actor). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness pales once travelling artist Beronius arrives on the scene (the performer, providing an acting turn of exceptional discomfiting power). If they are – similar to the clergyman – only a little more being stereotypes, they are at least potent archetypes.
Narrative Development
Once the foundations of tension planted, it is time to proceed with the storyline. The maid from the doctor’s house, the character Hilda (the actress), duly vanishes in the forest. Indications of her escape and animal scratches upon a trunk are found but she is completely absent. Rumours and fears of a man/maid-eating bear prowling the woodland circulate, yet the clergyman 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 allows distrust and prejudice and dark myths flourish based on local folklore that bears can be controlled or possessed by the spirits of humans. It avoids idealising the tough existence led by the villagers, in which brutality, whether that of the wild or people, lurks constantly on the edges, waiting to erupt. Yet the personas seldom evolve beyond symbols – or maybe, while the conflicts amid fairness and revenge, rationality and religion, good and wickedness intensify, emblematic figures in a fable – preventing the whole thing fully becoming immersive.
Tonal Inconsistencies
And then, there are numerous tonally jarring moments where the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and discern Hilda’s fate becomes nearly laughable. He stands observing shattered containers and clumps of hair in hay barns like a combined Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – alongside Jussi a rather hapless Hastings-cum-Watson (none of whom had to lick a mixture of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to confirm that indeed, it was definitely coagulated blood on the site), prior to declaring his latest deduction and extracting a corpse from a bog.
Opposing Goals
The local leaders are determined proving that the maid was killed by an animal, perhaps to protect the peace, or possibly to protect one of their own. The clergyman is bent on establishing the opposite, and the proof so quickly stacks up in his favour that once more the show’s credibility and the viewer’s patience are tested. At its best, To Cook a Bear evokes memories of the TV version a few years ago of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the opposing attractions and terrors presented by science and religion. At its worst, it resembles a bear-themed police procedural. Still, it appears to offer the response to that debated question: “Ladies, take the bear.”
The series streams on Disney+ currently.
