An heated discussion recently went viral across online platforms, following someone posed the question to women: which would you prefer find yourself stranded in a forest alongside a male or with a bear? Similar to the best thought experiments, it revealed vastly opposing perspectives and life encounters, highlighted chasms between the sexes, and was likely to induce an existential crisis for anyone pondering on it extensively. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable follow-up where men of a certain stripe came online to tell females how stupid they were to select the bear and proceeded to limn the punishments they merited for it. This at least allowed those females who had been hesitating about their decision to decide with a new confidence.
Dramatising the Scenario
The Bear-Cooking Tale skillfully brings to life this clever small premise. This six-episode series is based from Scandinavian writer the novelist’s 2018 book of the same name (translated in 2020 for an English audience). It follows the struggles of a clergyman (the lead actor) and his family when they arrive to begin a new ministry in Kengis, an isolated settlement in Sweden’s north, during the mid-19th century. In a place lacking many joys, none of the locals especially warm to his puritanical approach to drinking and dancing, but it is his protection of the poor – especially the indigenous Sami, from which hails the preacher’s adopted son the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his conviction in societal fairness and equality that sets him in direct opposition against the Kengis powers that be.
The Antagonists
Quickly in cahoots against him include the lawman the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (the actress), observed initially dismissing a recently mangled laborer with a month’s pay as he remains babbling upon seeing his crushed hand, and all others who profit from a populace easily swayed with some containers of liquor provided by the creepy store owner the merchant Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). However, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness pales once itinerant painter the artist Beronius arrives in the story (the performer, delivering an acting turn of exceptional unsettling intensity). While they remain – like the pastor himself – only a little more being stereotypes, they still serve as potent archetypes.
Plot Progression
Once the foundations of tension sown, it is time to get down with the storyline. The maid employed by the doctor, the character Hilda (the actress), accordingly goes missing in the forest. Signs of her flight and animal scratches on a tree are found yet she remains completely absent. Rumours and fears regarding a human-devouring beast roaming the woodland circulate, 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 creates a fine sense of the bleakness that lets distrust and bias and grim legends thrive from the native legend that animals might be dominated or possessed by the souls of men. It avoids romanticise the tough existence led by the villagers, in which violence, be it from the wild or people, lurks constantly on the edges, waiting to erupt. Yet the personas rarely become beyond symbols – or perhaps, while the conflicts amid fairness and vengeance, rationality and religion, virtue and wickedness intensify, representative characters in a fable – preventing the entire production fully coming to life.
Tonal Inconsistencies
Additionally, there are numerous stylistically clashing instances where the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and determine the maid’s destiny becomes almost risible. He stands looking at shattered containers and strands of fur in hay barns as a fusion of the Belgian detective and Sherlock Holmes – alongside Jussi a rather hapless Hastings-cum-Watson (neither of whom were required to taste a blend of blood droplets and the boss’s spit to confirm that, yes, it was clearly dried blood on the site), before announcing his newest conclusion and pulling a body from a bog.
Clashing Agendas
The local leaders are bent on demonstrating that the maid met her end by a bear, perhaps to preserve the calm, or possibly to shield one of their own. The pastor is bent on establishing otherwise, and the evidence so rapidly stacks up supporting his view that once more the drama’s plausibility and the viewer’s patience are tested. At its best, the series is reminiscent of the TV version a few years ago of Sarah Perry’s The Essex Serpent, through its portrayal of the opposing attractions and fears presented by science and religion. At its worst, it’s more like 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 is on Disney+ currently.
