An heated discussion lately spread widely on social media, following someone asked the question for females: would you rather find yourself stranded in a forest alongside a male or with a bear? Like all the best hypothetical scenarios, it exposed vastly opposing worldviews and experiences, illuminated chasms among genders, and was likely cause an existential crisis for anyone pondering about it for too long. Additionally, there came the predictable coda in which some males came online to tell females how stupid they had been to select the animal and went on to describe the punishments they merited for that choice. This at least enabled those females who had been hesitating over their choice to decide with renewed assurance.
Portraying the Setup
The Bear-Cooking Tale effectively brings to life this nifty little setup. This six-episode drama is adapted from Scandinavian writer the novelist’s 2018 book of the same name (rendered two years later for an English audience). It follows the tribulations of a clergyman (the lead actor) and his family as they come to begin a new ministry within Kengis, a remote village in Sweden’s north, in 1852. Within a community with few pleasures, none of the locals especially appreciate his puritanical stance on alcohol and revelry, yet it is his defense of impoverished people – particularly the indigenous Sami, from which hails the pastor’s adopted son the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in social justice and equal rights that sets him on a collision course with the Kengis powers that be.
The Opposing Forces
Quickly collaborating opposing him include the sheriff the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating mill owner the matron Sjödahl (the actress), seen early on firing a newly injured laborer with a month’s pay while he is still babbling upon seeing his crushed hand, and anyone else who benefit from a populace easily swayed with some containers of liquor provided by the unsettling shopkeeper Lindmark (the actor). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes when travelling artist the artist Beronius arrives on the scene (the performer, delivering a performance of exceptional discomfiting power). If they are – like the pastor himself – just slightly beyond than caricatures, they still serve as effective ones.
Narrative Development
Once the foundations of conflict sown, it is time to proceed to narrative business. The maid from the doctor’s house, the character Hilda (the actress), duly vanishes from the woods. Indications of her escape and bear markings on a tree get discovered yet she remains completely absent. Gossip and fears regarding a human-devouring beast prowling the woods spread, yet the clergyman holds a different view that he and Jussi set out to prove.
An Odd Beast
To Cook a Bear is a slightly peculiar show. It creates a fine sense of the bleakness that lets distrust and prejudice and dark myths thrive from the native legend that animals can be controlled or possessed by the souls of humans. It avoids romanticise the hardscrabble life experienced by the residents, in which brutality, whether that of nature or mankind, lurks constantly at the periphery, poised to explode. Yet the personas rarely become beyond symbols – or maybe, while the conflicts amid fairness and vengeance, logic and faith, good and evil escalate, emblematic figures in a fable – which stops the whole thing fully coming to life.
Stylistic Shifts
Additionally, exist the many tonally jarring moments where the clergyman’s skill to discover clues and determine the maid’s destiny becomes almost risible. He positions himself looking at shattered containers and clumps of hair within storage sheds as a fusion of Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (none of whom had to lick a blend of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to confirm that indeed, it was clearly dried blood on the site), before announcing his newest conclusion and pulling a corpse from a bog.
Opposing Goals
The local leaders are bent on proving that Hilda met her end by an animal, maybe to protect the peace, perhaps to shield one of their own. The pastor is bent on proving otherwise, and the proof so rapidly stacks up supporting his view that once more the show’s credibility and the viewer’s patience get strained. At its best, the series evokes memories of the adaptation a few years ago of the author’s The Essex Serpent, through its portrayal of the competing attractions and fears offered by science and religion. At its worst, it’s more like a bear-themed police procedural. Nevertheless, it does seem to offer the response to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”
To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ now.
