A intense debate recently spread widely on social media, after a user posed the question for females: which would you prefer be lost in the woods alongside a male or a bear? Like all the most engaging thought experiments, it revealed vastly opposing perspectives and life encounters, illuminated divides between the sexes, and was likely to induce a deep personal dilemma if you thought on it extensively. There was also the predictable coda where some males came online to tell women how foolish they had been to select the animal and went on to limn the punishments they merited for that choice. This at minimum enabled those females who were uncertain over their choice to make it with a new confidence.
Dramatising the Setup
The Bear-Cooking Tale skillfully dramatises this clever small premise. This six-episode drama is based from Scandinavian writer the novelist’s 2018 book with the identical title (translated in 2020 for English readers). It traces the tribulations of a pastor (the lead actor) and his household as they come to begin a fresh religious post within Kengis, an isolated settlement in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. Within a community with few pleasures, none of the locals especially warm to his strict approach to alcohol and dancing, yet it is his protection of the poor – particularly the indigenous Sami, from among whom comes the pastor’s adopted son Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in societal fairness and equal rights that sets him in direct opposition against the Kengis powers that be.
The Antagonists
Soon collaborating opposing him are the lawman Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the fearsome factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (the actress), seen initially dismissing a newly injured worker with a month’s pay while he is still babbling upon seeing of his pulped hand, and all others who benefit from a populace easily swayed with some containers of liquor provided by the creepy store owner Lindmark (the actor). However, to be fair, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes once itinerant painter Beronius appears in the story (the performer, providing a performance of rare unsettling intensity). If they are – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond than caricatures, they still serve as effective ones.
Narrative Development
With the seeds of conflict planted, it is time to get down to narrative business. The maid from the doctor’s house, Hilda (the actress), accordingly vanishes from the woods. Indications of her escape and animal scratches on a tree get discovered but she is nowhere to be seen. Gossip and anxieties of a man/maid-eating beast prowling the woods circulate, yet the clergyman has another theory that he and Jussi set out to prove.
A Strange Creation
This Bear Drama is a slightly peculiar show. It conjures a strong impression of the bleakness that allows suspicion and prejudice and dark myths flourish based on local folklore that animals can be controlled or inhabited by the souls of men. It avoids idealising the tough existence led by the residents, where brutality, whether that of nature or people, always looms on the edges, poised to explode. Yet the personas rarely become beyond symbols – or maybe, while the conflicts between justice and revenge, logic and religion, good and wickedness escalate, representative characters in a fable – which stops the whole thing truly coming to life.
Stylistic Shifts
And then, there are numerous tonally jarring instances in which the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and discern Hilda’s fate becomes almost risible. He stands looking at broken milk pots and clumps of hair in hay barns as a fusion of the Belgian detective the English sleuth – with Jussi a rather hapless assistant figure (neither of whom had to lick a blend of blood droplets and the boss’s spit to agree that indeed, it was clearly dried blood on the site), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and pulling a body from a bog.
Opposing Goals
The village elite are determined proving that Hilda was killed by a bear, perhaps to preserve the peace, perhaps to shield a fellow elite. The pastor is intent on proving otherwise, and the proof so rapidly stacks up supporting his view that again the show’s credibility and the viewer’s patience get strained. In its finest moments, To Cook a Bear is reminiscent of the TV version a few years ago of the author’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the opposing allures and fears offered by rational thought and belief. At its worst, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it does seem to provide the answer to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”
To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ currently.
