An heated discussion lately went viral across online platforms, after someone asked the question to women: would you rather find yourself stranded in a forest with a man or with a bear? Similar to the best thought experiments, it exposed wildly different worldviews and life encounters, illuminated divides between the sexes, and could easily cause an existential crisis for anyone pondering on it extensively. There was also the almost inevitable coda in which some males took to the internet to inform women how stupid they were for choosing the animal and proceeded 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 renewed assurance.
Portraying the Setup
The Bear-Cooking Tale effectively brings to life this clever small premise. The six-part drama is based from Swedish author the novelist’s 2018 book of the same name (translated two years later for an English audience). It traces the tribulations of a clergyman (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his household when they arrive to begin a fresh religious post in Kengis, an isolated settlement in Sweden’s north, during the mid-19th century. In a place with few pleasures, none of the inhabitants particularly warm to his strict approach to alcohol and revelry, but it is his defense of impoverished people – especially the indigenous Sami, from among whom comes the pastor’s foster child the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his conviction in social justice and equality that places him on a collision course with the Kengis powers that be.
The Opposing Forces
Quickly collaborating against him include the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the fearsome mill owner the matron Sjödahl (the actress), seen initially firing a newly injured laborer with minimal compensation while he is still babbling at the sight of his pulped hand, and anyone else who benefit from a community easily swayed with some containers of the whisky sold by the unsettling shopkeeper the merchant Lindmark (the actor). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes once travelling artist the artist Beronius arrives in the story (the performer, providing an acting turn of rare discomfiting power). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, they still serve as potent archetypes.
Plot Progression
Once the foundations of conflict planted, it is time to proceed with the storyline. The servant from the doctor’s house, the character Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), accordingly goes missing in the forest. Indications of her escape and animal scratches on a tree get discovered yet she remains nowhere to be seen. Gossip and fears regarding a human-devouring bear prowling the woodland spread, but the pastor holds a different view that he and Jussi set out to verify.
A Strange Creation
To Cook a Bear is a somewhat peculiar show. It conjures a strong impression of the desolation that allows distrust and prejudice and dark myths flourish from the native legend that bears might be dominated or possessed by the souls of humans. It avoids idealising the hardscrabble life led by the residents, where brutality, be it from the wild or people, always looms at the periphery, poised to explode. Yet the personas seldom evolve more than ciphers – or perhaps, while the conflicts between justice and vengeance, logic and religion, virtue and wickedness escalate, emblematic figures in a fable – which stops the entire production fully coming to life.
Stylistic Shifts
And then, there are numerous tonally jarring moments where the clergyman’s skill to discover clues and determine the maid’s destiny becomes almost risible. He positions himself observing broken milk pots and clumps of hair within storage sheds like a combined Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (neither of whom were required to lick a mixture of blood droplets and the boss’s spit to agree that, yes, it was clearly dried blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his latest deduction and pulling a corpse from a bog.
Clashing Agendas
The local leaders are determined proving that the maid met her end by a bear, maybe to preserve the peace, perhaps to shield one of their own. The pastor is intent on establishing otherwise, and the proof so rapidly stacks up in his favour that again the drama’s plausibility and audience tolerance are tested. At its best, the series is reminiscent of the TV version a few years ago of the author’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the competing attractions and fears presented by science and religion. At its worst, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it appears to provide the response to that debated question: “Females, choose the animal.”
The series is on Disney+ now.
