An intense discussion recently went viral on social media, after a user posed a query to women: which would you prefer be lost in a forest with a man or with a bear? Similar to the best thought experiments, it exposed vastly opposing worldviews and life encounters, highlighted chasms between the sexes, and was likely to induce an existential crisis for anyone pondering on it for too long. There was also the predictable follow-up in which some males took to the internet to tell females how foolish they had been to select the animal and proceeded to limn the consequences they merited for that choice. This at minimum allowed those females who were uncertain about their decision to make it with renewed assurance.
Portraying the Scenario
The Bear-Cooking Tale skillfully brings to life this clever little setup. The six-part series is based from Swedish author the novelist’s 2018 book with the identical title (rendered in 2020 for English readers). It follows the tribulations of a clergyman (the lead actor) and his family when they arrive to begin a new ministry within Kengis, a remote settlement in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. Within a community lacking many joys, none of the locals especially appreciate his strict approach to alcohol and revelry, yet it is his protection of impoverished people – especially the native Sami population, from which hails the preacher’s adopted son Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his belief in social justice and equal rights that sets him in direct opposition against the Kengis local authorities.
The Opposing Forces
Soon collaborating against him are the lawman the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the fearsome factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (the actress), seen early on firing a newly injured laborer with minimal compensation as he remains babbling at the sight of his pulped hand, and anyone else who profit from a populace easily swayed for a few bottles of the whisky sold by the creepy store owner Lindmark (the actor). However, to be fair, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes once travelling artist Beronius appears on the scene (the performer, providing a performance of exceptional discomfiting power). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – only a little more being stereotypes, they are at least effective ones.
Narrative Development
Once the foundations of conflict planted, it is time to proceed to narrative business. The servant from the doctor’s house, the character Hilda (the actress), duly vanishes from the woods. Signs of her escape and animal scratches on a tree are found but she is nowhere to be seen. Rumours and anxieties regarding a human-devouring bear roaming the woodland spread, yet the clergyman has another theory which he and his ward set out to verify.
An Odd Beast
This Bear Drama is a slightly odd beast. It conjures a fine sense of the bleakness that lets suspicion and prejudice and grim legends thrive based on local folklore that animals can be controlled or inhabited by the spirits of humans. And it doesn’t romanticise the hardscrabble life led by the residents, where violence, whether that of nature or people, lurks constantly at the periphery, waiting to erupt. Yet the personas seldom evolve beyond symbols – or perhaps, as the struggles between justice and revenge, logic and religion, good and wickedness escalate, representative characters within a moral tale – which stops the entire production truly becoming immersive.
Stylistic Shifts
Additionally, exist numerous tonally jarring instances where the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and discern the maid’s destiny becomes almost risible. He positions himself observing shattered containers and clumps of hair in hay barns like a combined Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – alongside Jussi a rather hapless assistant figure (none of whom had to taste a mixture of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to agree that indeed, it was definitely coagulated blood on the site), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and pulling a body out of a swamp.
Clashing Agendas
The local leaders are bent on demonstrating that the maid met her end by a bear, maybe to preserve the peace, or possibly to protect a fellow elite. The pastor is bent on establishing otherwise, and the proof so rapidly accumulates in his favour that again the show’s credibility and audience tolerance are tested. In its finest moments, To Cook a Bear evokes memories of the TV version some years back of the author’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the competing attractions and fears 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: “Females, choose the animal.”
The series is on Disney+ now.
