A heated debate recently spread widely across online platforms, after a user posed a query to women: would you rather find yourself stranded in the woods with a man or a bear? Similar to the best thought experiments, it exposed vastly opposing perspectives and life encounters, illuminated divides 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 some males took to the internet to inform women how stupid they were for choosing the animal and went on to describe the consequences they merited for it. This at least enabled those females who had been hesitating about their decision to make it with a new confidence.
Portraying the Scenario
The Bear-Cooking Tale skillfully brings to life this clever small premise. This six-episode series is based from Scandinavian writer Mikael Niemi’s 2018 book of the same name (translated in 2020 for an English audience). It traces the struggles of a pastor (the lead actor) and his household when they arrive to start a fresh religious post within Kengis, an isolated settlement in Sweden’s north, during the mid-19th century. Within a community lacking many joys, none of the locals especially warm to his puritanical approach to drinking and dancing, but it is his protection of the poor – especially the native Sami population, from which comes the preacher’s foster child the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his belief in social justice and equal rights that places him on a collision course with the Kengis powers that be.
The Opposing Forces
Quickly in cahoots opposing him are the sheriff the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating mill owner the matron Sjödahl (the actress), seen initially dismissing a newly injured worker with minimal compensation as he remains gibbering upon seeing his crushed hand, and anyone else who benefit from a populace who can be bought for a few bottles of liquor sold by the creepy shopkeeper the merchant Lindmark (the actor). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness pales once itinerant painter the artist Beronius appears on the scene (the performer, providing a performance of rare unsettling intensity). While they remain – like the pastor himself – only a little more than caricatures, they still serve as effective ones.
Narrative Development
Once the foundations of conflict sown, the moment arrives to get down to narrative business. The servant from the doctor’s house, Hilda (the actress), accordingly vanishes from the woods. Signs of her escape and bear markings on a tree are found but she is completely absent. Gossip and anxieties of a man/maid-eating beast prowling the woodland spread, yet the clergyman holds a different view which he and his ward set out to prove.
A Strange Creation
This Bear Drama is a slightly odd beast. It creates a strong impression of the bleakness that lets distrust and bias and dark myths flourish based on local folklore that bears can be controlled or inhabited by the souls of men. It avoids romanticise the hardscrabble life experienced by the residents, in which violence, whether that of nature or mankind, always looms on the edges, waiting to erupt. Yet the personas seldom evolve more than ciphers – or maybe, as the struggles amid fairness and revenge, logic and faith, good and wickedness escalate, emblematic figures in a fable – which stops the whole thing truly coming to life.
Tonal Inconsistencies
Additionally, there are numerous stylistically clashing moments in which the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and discern the maid’s destiny becomes nearly laughable. He stands observing broken milk pots and strands of fur in hay barns as a fusion of Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (none of whom were required to taste a mixture of blood droplets and saliva from his superior to confirm that, yes, it was clearly coagulated blood on the site), prior to declaring his latest deduction and pulling a body out of a swamp.
Clashing Agendas
The village elite are bent on proving that Hilda was killed by a bear, perhaps to protect the calm, or possibly to shield a fellow elite. The clergyman is bent on proving otherwise, and the proof so rapidly accumulates in his favour that once more the drama’s plausibility and audience tolerance are tested. At its best, To Cook a Bear is reminiscent of the adaptation some years back of Sarah Perry’s The Essex Serpent, through its portrayal of the opposing allures and terrors presented by science and belief. In its low points, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Nevertheless, it appears to offer the answer to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”
To Cook a Bear is on Disney+ currently.
