A intense debate lately spread widely on social media, after a user posed a query to women: would you rather be lost in the woods with a man or a bear? Like all the most engaging thought experiments, it exposed wildly different worldviews and experiences, illuminated chasms among genders, and could easily cause an existential crisis for anyone pondering about it for too long. There was also the predictable follow-up in which some males took to the internet to inform women how stupid they were for choosing the bear and went on to describe the punishments they deserved for it. This at minimum allowed those females who were uncertain about their decision to make it with renewed assurance.
Portraying the Setup
The Bear-Cooking Tale effectively brings to life this clever small premise. This six-episode series is adapted on Swedish author the novelist’s 2018 book with the identical title (rendered in 2020 for an English audience). It follows the tribulations of a pastor (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his family when they arrive to begin a new ministry within Kengis, an isolated village in Sweden’s north, in 1852. Within a community lacking many joys, none of the inhabitants especially appreciate his puritanical stance on drinking and dancing, yet it is his defense of impoverished people – especially the indigenous Sami, from among whom comes the pastor’s foster child Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his belief in societal fairness and equal rights that sets him on a collision course against the Kengis local authorities.
The Antagonists
Quickly collaborating opposing him include the lawman Brahe (the performer), the fearsome mill owner Madam Sjödahl (the actress), observed early on dismissing a newly injured worker with minimal compensation while he is still gibbering upon seeing of his pulped hand, and all others who profit from a community who can be bought for a few bottles of the whisky sold by the unsettling store owner Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). However, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes once itinerant painter Beronius appears in the story (the performer, delivering an acting turn of exceptional discomfiting power). If they are – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, they still serve as effective ones.
Narrative Development
Once the foundations of tension planted, it is time to get down to narrative business. The servant from the doctor’s house, the character Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), duly goes missing in the forest. Signs of her escape and animal scratches upon a trunk get discovered yet she remains completely absent. Rumours and anxieties regarding a human-devouring bear roaming the woods spread, but the pastor has another theory that he and Jussi set out to prove.
A Strange Creation
This Bear Drama is a slightly peculiar show. It creates a strong impression of the bleakness that lets distrust and prejudice and dark myths thrive based on local folklore that animals can be controlled or inhabited by the spirits of humans. And it doesn’t idealising the tough existence led by the residents, in which brutality, be it from the wild or people, lurks constantly at the periphery, waiting to erupt. Yet the personas seldom evolve beyond symbols – or maybe, while the conflicts amid fairness and revenge, logic and faith, good and wickedness escalate, representative characters in a fable – preventing the entire production fully becoming immersive.
Stylistic Shifts
Additionally, exist the many stylistically clashing instances in which the pastor’s ability to discover clues and determine Hilda’s fate becomes almost risible. He stands observing shattered containers and strands of fur within storage sheds like a combined the Belgian detective the English sleuth – with Jussi a rather hapless assistant figure (none of whom had to taste a mixture of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to confirm that indeed, it was definitely coagulated blood on the site), before announcing his newest conclusion and pulling a body from a bog.
Clashing Agendas
The local leaders are bent on proving that Hilda met her end by a bear, maybe to protect the calm, perhaps to protect one of their own. The clergyman is bent on establishing the opposite, and the evidence so quickly stacks up in his favour that again the drama’s plausibility and the viewer’s patience get strained. At its best, To Cook a Bear evokes memories of the adaptation a few years ago of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the competing attractions and fears presented by rational thought and religion. In its low points, it resembles a bear-themed police procedural. Nevertheless, it does seem to provide the response to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”
The series streams on Disney+ now.
