An intense discussion recently went viral across online platforms, after a user asked a query for females: which would you prefer be lost in a forest with a man or with a bear? Similar to the best thought experiments, it revealed vastly opposing worldviews and experiences, illuminated chasms between the sexes, and was likely to induce an existential crisis if you thought on it for too long. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable coda where some males came online to tell females how stupid they were to select the animal and proceeded to describe the punishments they deserved for that choice. This at least allowed the women who had been hesitating over their choice to decide with a new confidence.
Portraying the Scenario
The Bear-Cooking Tale skillfully brings to life this nifty small premise. The six-part drama is based from Scandinavian writer the novelist’s 2018 novel with the identical title (translated two years later for an English audience). It follows the struggles of a pastor (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his household as they come to start a new ministry in Kengis, a remote village in Sweden’s north, during the mid-19th century. Within a community lacking many joys, not one of the locals particularly warm to his strict approach to drinking and dancing, but it is his defense of the poor – particularly the native Sami population, from among whom hails the pastor’s foster child Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in societal fairness and equality that sets him on a collision course against the Kengis powers that be.
The Antagonists
Quickly in cahoots opposing him are the sheriff the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the intimidating mill owner Madam Sjödahl (the actress), observed initially dismissing a recently mangled laborer with minimal compensation while he is still gibbering upon seeing his crushed hand, and all others who profit from a community easily swayed for a few bottles of the whisky provided by the creepy shopkeeper the merchant Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). However, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness pales once travelling artist Beronius arrives in the story (the performer, providing an acting turn of exceptional unsettling intensity). While they remain – like the pastor himself – just slightly beyond than caricatures, they still serve as effective ones.
Narrative Development
With the seeds of tension sown, it is time to get down with the storyline. The servant employed by the doctor, the character Hilda (the actress), accordingly vanishes from the woods. Indications of her escape and animal scratches upon a trunk are found yet she remains nowhere to be seen. Rumours and anxieties of a man/maid-eating beast prowling the woods circulate, yet the clergyman holds a different view that he and Jussi set out to verify.
An Odd Beast
This Bear Drama is a somewhat odd beast. It creates a fine sense of the desolation that allows distrust and prejudice and dark myths flourish based on local folklore that animals might be dominated or possessed by the souls of men. And it doesn’t idealising the tough existence experienced by the residents, in which brutality, be it from the wild or people, always looms on the edges, poised to explode. But the characters seldom evolve beyond symbols – or maybe, as the struggles between justice and vengeance, rationality and faith, virtue and evil escalate, representative characters in a fable – which stops the entire production truly becoming immersive.
Tonal Inconsistencies
And then, there are numerous tonally jarring instances in which the clergyman’s skill to discover clues and determine the maid’s destiny becomes nearly laughable. He positions himself observing broken milk pots and clumps of hair within storage sheds like a combined Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (none of whom were required to lick a mixture of blood droplets and saliva from his superior to confirm that, yes, it was definitely coagulated blood on the site), before announcing his latest deduction and pulling a corpse out of a swamp.
Clashing Agendas
The local leaders are determined demonstrating that the maid met her end by an animal, perhaps to protect the peace, perhaps to shield one of their own. The clergyman is intent on establishing otherwise, and the evidence so quickly accumulates in his favour that again the drama’s plausibility and audience tolerance get strained. At its best, the series evokes memories of the adaptation some years back of the author’s The Essex Serpent, with its evocation of the competing attractions and fears presented by science and belief. At its worst, it’s more like Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Nevertheless, it appears to offer the answer to the earlier query: “Females, choose the animal.”
To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ currently.
