A heated discussion lately went viral on social media, after someone posed the question to women: which would you prefer find yourself stranded in the woods alongside a male or a bear? Like all the most engaging hypothetical scenarios, it exposed wildly different worldviews and experiences, illuminated divides among genders, and was likely cause an existential crisis if you thought on it for too long. There was also the almost inevitable coda in which some males came online to tell women how stupid they had been to select the bear and proceeded to describe the punishments they deserved for that choice. This at least allowed those females who were uncertain about their decision to decide with a new confidence.
Portraying the Setup
The Bear-Cooking Tale skillfully brings to life this clever little setup. This six-episode drama is based from Swedish author the novelist’s 2018 book of the same name (translated in 2020 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 within Kengis, an isolated village in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. Within a community with few pleasures, none of the locals particularly warm to his strict approach to alcohol and dancing, yet it is his defense of the poor – especially the indigenous Sami, from among whom comes the preacher’s adopted son the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his conviction in social justice and equal rights that sets him in direct opposition with the Kengis local authorities.
The Opposing Forces
Quickly collaborating opposing him include the lawman the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the fearsome mill owner Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed initially dismissing a recently mangled laborer with minimal compensation as he remains babbling upon seeing of his pulped hand, and all others who benefit from a community who can be bought for a few bottles of the whisky sold by the unsettling shopkeeper Lindmark (the actor). However, to be fair, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes when travelling artist Beronius arrives on the scene (the performer, delivering an acting turn of rare discomfiting power). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, they still serve as potent archetypes.
Narrative Development
With the seeds of conflict planted, it is time to get down with the storyline. The maid from the doctor’s house, Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), accordingly goes missing in the forest. Signs of her flight and animal scratches upon a trunk get discovered yet she remains nowhere to be seen. Gossip and fears of a man/maid-eating bear prowling the woods spread, but the pastor holds a different view that he and Jussi embark to verify.
An Odd Beast
This Bear Drama is a slightly odd beast. It creates a fine sense of the bleakness that allows distrust and prejudice and grim legends flourish from the native legend that bears might be dominated or inhabited by the spirits of humans. It avoids romanticise the hardscrabble life led by the residents, in which violence, whether that of the wild or people, always looms at the periphery, waiting to erupt. But the characters seldom evolve beyond symbols – or maybe, as the struggles between justice and revenge, rationality and faith, virtue and evil escalate, emblematic figures within a moral tale – which stops the whole thing fully becoming immersive.
Stylistic Shifts
And then, there are numerous stylistically clashing moments in which the pastor’s ability to discover clues and discern Hilda’s fate turns almost risible. He stands looking at shattered containers and clumps of hair within storage sheds like a combined Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (neither of whom had to lick a mixture of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to confirm that, yes, it was clearly coagulated blood at the crime scene), before announcing his latest deduction and extracting a corpse out of a swamp.
Clashing Agendas
The local leaders are determined proving that Hilda met her end by a bear, maybe to protect the calm, or possibly to shield a fellow elite. The pastor is intent on proving the opposite, and the evidence so quickly stacks up in his favour that again the show’s credibility and audience tolerance are tested. In its finest moments, To Cook a Bear is reminiscent of the adaptation a few years ago of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the opposing attractions and terrors presented by science and belief. In its low points, it’s more like a bear-themed police procedural. Nevertheless, it appears to provide the response to that debated question: “Ladies, take the bear.”
To Cook a Bear is on Disney+ now.
