An intense debate recently went viral on social media, after a user posed the question to women: which would you prefer be lost in a forest with a man or a bear? Similar to the most engaging thought experiments, it exposed wildly different perspectives and life encounters, highlighted chasms between the sexes, and was likely to induce an existential crisis if you thought about it for too long. There was also the predictable coda in which men of a certain stripe took to the internet to tell females how foolish they had been for choosing the animal and proceeded to describe the punishments they deserved for it. This at minimum allowed those females who had been hesitating over their choice to decide with a new confidence.
Portraying the Scenario
The Bear-Cooking Tale effectively brings to life this clever small premise. The six-part series is adapted from Swedish author the novelist’s 2018 book of the same name (translated two years later for an English audience). It traces the struggles of a pastor (the lead actor) and his family when they arrive to start a fresh religious post within Kengis, a remote settlement in Sweden’s north, during the mid-19th century. In a place with few pleasures, none of the inhabitants especially warm to his puritanical stance on alcohol and dancing, yet it is his defense of impoverished people – especially the native Sami population, from which comes the preacher’s foster child Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his conviction in societal fairness and equal rights that sets him in direct opposition with the Kengis local authorities.
The Antagonists
Quickly collaborating opposing him include the sheriff the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (the actress), observed early on firing a newly injured worker with minimal compensation as he remains babbling at the sight of his pulped hand, and anyone else who profit from a community who can be bought with some containers of the whisky provided by the creepy store owner the merchant Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). However, to be fair, Lindmark’s eeriness pales when itinerant painter the artist Beronius appears on the scene (the performer, providing a performance of rare discomfiting power). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, they are at least effective ones.
Plot Progression
With the seeds of conflict planted, the moment arrives to proceed to narrative business. The servant from the doctor’s house, Hilda (the actress), accordingly vanishes in the forest. Indications of her escape and animal scratches upon a trunk are found yet she remains nowhere to be seen. Rumours and fears of a man/maid-eating bear prowling the woods circulate, yet the clergyman holds a different view which he and his ward set out to prove.
A Strange Creation
This Bear Drama is a slightly peculiar show. It creates a strong impression of the desolation that lets suspicion and bias and grim legends thrive from the native legend that animals might be dominated or inhabited by the spirits of humans. And it doesn’t romanticise the tough existence experienced by the villagers, in which violence, whether that of the wild or mankind, always looms at the periphery, poised to explode. But the characters seldom evolve beyond symbols – or perhaps, as the struggles amid fairness and revenge, rationality and faith, good and wickedness intensify, emblematic figures in a fable – which stops the entire production fully coming to life.
Stylistic Shifts
Additionally, exist numerous tonally jarring moments where the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and determine the maid’s destiny turns almost risible. He stands looking at broken milk pots and strands of fur in hay barns as a fusion of the Belgian detective and Sherlock Holmes – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (neither of whom had to taste a blend of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to agree that indeed, it was definitely dried blood on the site), prior to declaring his latest deduction and extracting a body from a bog.
Opposing Goals
The local leaders are bent on proving that the maid met her end by a bear, perhaps to protect the peace, perhaps to shield one of their own. The clergyman is intent on proving the opposite, and the proof so rapidly accumulates in his favour that once more the drama’s plausibility and audience tolerance get strained. In its finest moments, To Cook a Bear is reminiscent of the TV version some years back of the author’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the opposing allures and terrors offered by science and religion. At its worst, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it appears to offer the response to that debated question: “Ladies, take the bear.”
The series streams on Disney+ currently.
