An intense debate lately spread widely across online platforms, following someone posed the question for females: which would you prefer find yourself stranded in a forest alongside a male or with a bear? Like all the most engaging hypothetical scenarios, it revealed vastly opposing worldviews and experiences, highlighted chasms between the sexes, and could easily cause a deep personal dilemma if you thought on it for too long. Additionally, there came the predictable coda where men of a certain stripe took to the internet to inform females how stupid they had been to select the bear and went on to limn the consequences they deserved for it. This at least enabled those females who were uncertain about their decision to make it with a new confidence.
Dramatising the Setup
The Bear-Cooking Tale effectively brings to life this nifty small premise. The six-part drama is based from Scandinavian writer the novelist’s 2018 novel of the same name (rendered two years later for English readers). It traces 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 inhabitants particularly warm to his strict stance on alcohol and revelry, but it is his protection of the poor – especially the native Sami population, from which hails the pastor’s adopted son the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his conviction in social justice and equal rights that places him on a collision course against the Kengis local authorities.
The Opposing Forces
Quickly collaborating opposing him are the lawman Brahe (the performer), the fearsome mill owner Madam Sjödahl (the actress), seen initially firing a recently mangled worker with minimal compensation while he is still gibbering upon seeing of his pulped hand, and anyone else who profit from a populace easily swayed for a few bottles of the whisky provided by the unsettling shopkeeper the merchant Lindmark (the actor). However, to be fair, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes when itinerant painter the artist Beronius appears in the story (the performer, delivering a performance of exceptional discomfiting power). While they remain – like the pastor himself – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, they still serve as effective ones.
Plot Progression
With the seeds of conflict planted, the moment arrives to proceed with the storyline. The maid employed by the doctor, Hilda (the actress), duly vanishes in the forest. Indications of her escape and bear markings on a tree get discovered but she is nowhere to be seen. Gossip and fears of a man/maid-eating bear roaming the woods circulate, yet the clergyman holds a different view that he and Jussi set out to verify.
A Strange Creation
To Cook a Bear is a slightly peculiar show. It conjures a strong impression of the bleakness that lets distrust and bias and dark myths thrive from the native legend that animals can be controlled or inhabited by the souls of humans. It avoids romanticise the hardscrabble life led by the residents, in which brutality, be it from the wild or mankind, always looms at the periphery, poised to explode. But the characters rarely become beyond symbols – or maybe, while the conflicts amid fairness and vengeance, rationality and religion, good and evil escalate, representative characters in a fable – preventing the whole thing truly becoming immersive.
Tonal Inconsistencies
Additionally, exist the many stylistically clashing moments where the clergyman’s skill to discover clues and determine the maid’s destiny turns nearly laughable. He positions himself observing shattered containers and strands of fur in hay barns as a fusion of the Belgian detective and Sherlock Holmes – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (none of whom had to taste a mixture of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to agree that, yes, it was clearly dried blood on the site), before announcing his latest deduction and pulling a body out of a swamp.
Clashing Agendas
The village elite are bent on demonstrating that Hilda met her end by an animal, perhaps to protect the calm, or possibly to shield a fellow elite. The clergyman is intent on establishing the opposite, and the evidence so quickly stacks up supporting his view that once more the show’s credibility and the viewer’s patience get strained. In its finest moments, the series evokes memories of the TV version some years back of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the opposing allures and fears presented by rational thought and belief. At its worst, it’s more like Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it does seem to provide the answer to that debated question: “Females, choose the animal.”
The series streams on Disney+ now.
