A heated discussion recently went viral across online platforms, following someone posed the question for females: which would you prefer find yourself stranded in a forest with a man or with a bear? Similar to the most engaging thought experiments, it exposed wildly different perspectives and experiences, highlighted chasms between the sexes, and could easily cause an existential crisis for anyone pondering on it extensively. Additionally, there came the predictable coda where some males took to the internet to tell females how stupid they had been to select the bear and proceeded to limn the consequences they merited for it. This at minimum enabled those females who were uncertain over their choice to make it with a new confidence.
Dramatising the Setup
The Bear-Cooking Tale effectively dramatises this clever small premise. The six-part drama is adapted on Scandinavian writer 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 fresh religious post in Kengis, an isolated village in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. Within a community lacking many joys, not one of the inhabitants especially appreciate his strict stance on drinking and revelry, yet it is his defense of impoverished people – particularly the indigenous Sami, from among whom hails the pastor’s foster child the youth 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 against him include the lawman Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen early on dismissing a recently mangled worker with a month’s pay as he remains babbling at the sight his crushed hand, and anyone else who benefit from a populace who can be bought with some containers of liquor provided by the unsettling store owner the merchant Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). However, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes once itinerant painter Beronius arrives on the scene (Simon J Berger, delivering a performance of rare discomfiting power). If they are – similar to the clergyman – only a little more being stereotypes, they still serve as potent archetypes.
Plot Progression
With the seeds of tension sown, it is time to proceed to narrative business. The servant employed by the doctor, the character Hilda (the actress), accordingly goes missing from the woods. Indications of her escape and animal scratches on a tree are found but she is completely absent. Rumours and fears of a man/maid-eating beast roaming the woods circulate, but the pastor holds a different view which he and his ward set out to verify.
A Strange Creation
This Bear Drama is a somewhat peculiar show. It conjures a strong impression of the bleakness that lets suspicion and bias and dark myths flourish based on local folklore that bears can be controlled or possessed by the spirits of men. It avoids romanticise the tough existence led by the villagers, where brutality, whether that of the wild or people, lurks constantly on the edges, waiting to erupt. Yet the personas rarely become more than ciphers – or maybe, while the conflicts between justice and vengeance, logic and faith, good and wickedness escalate, representative characters in a fable – which stops the entire production truly coming to life.
Stylistic Shifts
Additionally, exist numerous stylistically clashing instances where the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and determine the maid’s destiny turns nearly laughable. He positions himself observing broken milk pots and strands of fur in hay barns as a fusion of the Belgian detective the English sleuth – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (neither of whom were required to taste a blend of blood spatter and the boss’s spit to agree that indeed, it was definitely dried blood on the site), before announcing his newest conclusion and extracting a body out of a swamp.
Clashing Agendas
The local leaders are bent on proving that the maid was killed by an animal, maybe to preserve the calm, or possibly to shield a fellow elite. The pastor is intent on establishing otherwise, and the evidence so quickly accumulates in his favour that once more the show’s credibility and audience tolerance are tested. 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 allures and terrors offered by rational thought and belief. At its worst, it resembles a bear-themed police procedural. Nevertheless, it appears to offer the response to the earlier query: “Females, choose the animal.”
To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ now.
