A heated discussion lately spread widely on social media, following someone asked the question for females: would you rather find yourself stranded in a forest with a man or a bear? Like all the best thought experiments, it exposed wildly different worldviews and experiences, illuminated divides among genders, 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 came online to inform females how stupid they had been for choosing the bear and went on to limn the consequences they merited for that choice. This at least enabled the women who were uncertain about their decision to decide with a new confidence.
Dramatising the Scenario
The Bear-Cooking Tale effectively brings to life this clever small premise. This six-episode drama is adapted from Scandinavian writer the novelist’s 2018 book with the identical title (rendered in 2020 for English readers). It traces the tribulations of a clergyman (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 with few pleasures, not one of the locals especially warm to his strict stance on drinking and dancing, yet it is his defense of impoverished people – especially the native Sami population, from among whom comes the pastor’s adopted son the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his conviction in societal fairness and equal rights that sets him in direct opposition against the Kengis local authorities.
The Antagonists
Quickly collaborating opposing him include the lawman Brahe (the performer), the fearsome mill owner the matron Sjödahl (the actress), seen initially firing a recently mangled laborer with minimal compensation while he is still babbling at the sight of his pulped hand, and anyone else who profit from a community easily swayed for a few bottles of the whisky provided by the unsettling shopkeeper Lindmark (the actor). Although, to be fair, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes when itinerant painter Beronius arrives on the scene (the performer, delivering a performance of exceptional unsettling intensity). If they are – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, they are at least potent archetypes.
Narrative Development
With the seeds of conflict sown, the moment arrives to proceed to narrative business. The maid from the doctor’s house, Hilda (the actress), duly vanishes in the forest. Indications of her escape and bear markings upon a trunk get discovered yet she remains nowhere to be seen. Rumours and anxieties of a man/maid-eating bear roaming the woodland circulate, but the pastor has another theory which he and his ward embark to verify.
An Odd Beast
This Bear Drama is a somewhat peculiar show. It creates a fine sense of the desolation that lets distrust and prejudice and dark myths flourish based on local folklore that animals can be controlled or inhabited by the souls of humans. It avoids romanticise the tough existence experienced by the residents, where brutality, whether that of nature or people, always looms on the edges, waiting to erupt. Yet the personas seldom evolve more than ciphers – or maybe, while the conflicts amid fairness and vengeance, logic and faith, virtue and evil intensify, emblematic figures within a moral tale – which stops the entire production truly coming to life.
Stylistic Shifts
Additionally, there are numerous tonally jarring instances in which the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and discern Hilda’s fate becomes almost risible. He positions himself observing broken milk pots and strands of fur within storage sheds like a combined Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (none of whom had to taste a mixture of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to agree that, yes, it was definitely coagulated blood on the site), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and extracting a corpse from a bog.
Opposing Goals
The village elite are bent on proving that the maid met her end by a bear, maybe to preserve the calm, or possibly to protect one of their own. The clergyman is intent on proving the opposite, and the proof so quickly accumulates in his favour that again the drama’s plausibility and audience tolerance get strained. At its best, To Cook a Bear evokes memories of the adaptation some years back of the author’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the opposing allures and fears offered by science and religion. At its worst, it resembles a bear-themed police procedural. Nevertheless, it appears to provide the answer to the earlier query: “Females, choose the animal.”
The series streams on Disney+ currently.
