An heated debate lately went viral on social media, after someone asked the question for females: would you rather be lost in the woods alongside a male or with a bear? Similar to the best hypothetical scenarios, it exposed wildly different perspectives and life encounters, highlighted chasms between the sexes, and was likely cause a deep personal dilemma if you thought on it for too long. There was also the almost inevitable coda in which men of a certain stripe took to the internet to tell women how stupid they had been for choosing the animal and proceeded to limn the consequences they deserved for it. This at least allowed those females who had been hesitating over their choice to make it with renewed assurance.
Portraying the Scenario
The Bear-Cooking Tale effectively dramatises this nifty little setup. The six-part series is adapted on Scandinavian writer the novelist’s 2018 novel with the identical title (rendered in 2020 for English readers). It follows the struggles of a pastor (the lead actor) and his household as they come to begin a new ministry in Kengis, an isolated village in northern Sweden, in 1852. Within a community with few pleasures, not one of the locals especially appreciate his strict stance on alcohol and dancing, yet it is his defense of the poor – particularly the native Sami population, from which hails the pastor’s foster child the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his belief in social justice and equality that places him on a collision course with the Kengis local authorities.
The Antagonists
Quickly in cahoots against him include the sheriff the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (the actress), observed initially firing a recently mangled laborer with minimal compensation while he is still gibbering at the sight his crushed hand, and all others who profit from a populace easily swayed with some containers of liquor provided by the unsettling shopkeeper Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes once travelling artist Beronius appears in the story (the performer, providing a performance of exceptional discomfiting power). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, they are at least potent archetypes.
Plot Progression
Once the foundations of tension planted, it is time to proceed with the storyline. The maid employed by the doctor, Hilda (the actress), duly vanishes in the forest. Indications of her flight and animal scratches on a tree get discovered but she is nowhere to be seen. Rumours and fears of a man/maid-eating bear roaming the woodland circulate, but the pastor has another theory which he and his ward set out to prove.
An Odd Beast
This Bear Drama is a slightly peculiar show. It creates a fine sense of the desolation that lets suspicion and prejudice and grim legends flourish from the native legend that animals might be dominated or inhabited by the souls of men. It avoids idealising the tough existence experienced by the residents, where violence, whether that of nature or people, always looms on the edges, poised to explode. But the characters rarely become more than ciphers – or perhaps, while the conflicts amid fairness and vengeance, logic and religion, good and wickedness escalate, emblematic figures in a fable – which stops the entire production truly coming to life.
Tonal Inconsistencies
And then, there are the many stylistically clashing instances where the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and discern the maid’s destiny becomes nearly laughable. He positions himself looking at broken milk pots and strands of fur within storage sheds like a combined the Belgian detective the English sleuth – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (none of whom were required to lick a mixture of blood droplets and saliva from his superior to confirm that indeed, it was definitely dried blood on the site), before announcing his newest conclusion and extracting a body from a bog.
Clashing Agendas
The village elite are bent on demonstrating that the maid was killed by an animal, maybe to preserve the peace, perhaps to shield one of their own. The pastor is intent on proving the opposite, and the proof so quickly stacks up supporting his view that again the show’s credibility and the viewer’s patience are tested. In its finest moments, To Cook a Bear evokes memories of the TV version a few years ago of Sarah Perry’s The Essex Serpent, with its evocation of the opposing allures and fears presented by science and religion. At its worst, it’s more like Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it appears to offer the response to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”
The series streams on Disney+ now.
