An intense discussion lately went viral on social media, following a user posed the question for females: would you rather find yourself stranded in a forest with a man or with a bear? Similar to the best hypothetical scenarios, it revealed vastly opposing worldviews and experiences, highlighted divides among genders, and could easily to induce a deep personal dilemma if you thought about it for too long. There was also the almost inevitable coda where some males came online to inform women how stupid they were to select the animal and went on to describe the consequences they merited for it. This at least enabled the women who had been hesitating over their choice to make it with renewed assurance.
Portraying the Setup
The Bear-Cooking Tale effectively dramatises this clever small premise. This six-episode drama is adapted on Swedish author the novelist’s 2018 novel of the same name (rendered in 2020 for an English audience). It follows the tribulations of a pastor (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his family as they come to begin a new ministry in Kengis, a remote settlement in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. In a place with few pleasures, not one of the locals particularly warm to his puritanical stance on drinking and dancing, yet it is his defense of impoverished people – especially the native Sami population, from among whom hails the pastor’s adopted son the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in societal fairness and equal rights that places him on a collision course with the Kengis local authorities.
The Opposing Forces
Quickly in cahoots against him include the lawman Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the fearsome factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed initially firing a recently mangled worker with a month’s pay while he is still babbling at the sight his crushed hand, and anyone else who profit from a community easily swayed with some containers of liquor provided by the unsettling store owner Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). However, to be fair, Lindmark’s eeriness pales when travelling artist Beronius arrives in the story (Simon J Berger, delivering an acting turn of rare unsettling intensity). If they are – similar to the clergyman – only a little more being stereotypes, they are at least effective ones.
Plot Progression
With the seeds of conflict sown, it is time to proceed with the storyline. The maid from the doctor’s house, the character Hilda (the actress), duly goes missing from the woods. Indications of her escape and animal scratches on a tree get discovered but she is completely absent. Gossip and anxieties of a man/maid-eating beast prowling the woodland circulate, yet the clergyman has another theory which he and his ward embark to prove.
A Strange Creation
This Bear Drama is a slightly odd beast. It creates a fine sense of the desolation that allows distrust and bias and dark myths thrive from the native legend that animals might be dominated or inhabited by the spirits of men. It avoids romanticise the tough existence experienced by the residents, in which violence, be it from the wild or mankind, lurks constantly on the edges, poised to explode. Yet the personas seldom evolve more than ciphers – or maybe, while the conflicts between justice and vengeance, rationality and faith, good and wickedness escalate, emblematic figures in a fable – which stops the entire production truly coming to life.
Stylistic Shifts
Additionally, there are numerous stylistically clashing instances in which the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and determine Hilda’s fate becomes nearly laughable. He stands looking at broken milk pots and clumps of hair in hay barns as a fusion of the Belgian detective and Sherlock Holmes – with Jussi a rather hapless assistant figure (neither of whom were required to taste a blend of blood spatter and the boss’s spit to confirm that, yes, it was definitely dried blood on the site), prior to declaring his latest deduction and extracting a body out of a swamp.
Clashing Agendas
The local leaders are determined demonstrating that the maid met her end by an animal, maybe to preserve the calm, perhaps to shield one of their own. The clergyman is intent on establishing otherwise, and the proof so quickly accumulates in his favour that again the drama’s plausibility and audience tolerance are tested. At its best, the series is reminiscent of the adaptation a few years ago of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the opposing allures and fears presented by rational thought and belief. At its worst, it resembles a bear-themed police procedural. Nevertheless, it appears to offer the answer to that debated question: “Ladies, take the bear.”
To Cook a Bear is on Disney+ currently.
