An heated discussion recently went viral on social media, following someone asked a query to women: would you rather be lost in a forest alongside a male or a bear? Like all the most engaging hypothetical scenarios, it revealed vastly opposing worldviews and experiences, illuminated chasms between the sexes, and was likely to induce a deep personal dilemma if you thought on it extensively. There was also the almost inevitable follow-up where men of a certain stripe came online to tell women how stupid they had been for choosing the animal and went on to describe the consequences they deserved for that choice. This at minimum enabled those females who were uncertain about their decision to decide with a new confidence.
Dramatising the Setup
The Bear-Cooking Tale skillfully brings to life this clever small premise. The six-part series is based on Scandinavian writer the novelist’s 2018 book with the identical title (translated two years later for English readers). It traces the struggles of a pastor (the lead actor) and his household when they arrive to begin a fresh religious post in Kengis, a remote settlement in Sweden’s north, during the mid-19th century. Within a community with few pleasures, none of the locals especially warm to his puritanical approach to drinking and dancing, yet it is his protection of the poor – particularly the indigenous Sami, from among whom hails the pastor’s foster child the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his conviction in societal fairness and equality that places him on a collision course against the Kengis powers that be.
The Opposing Forces
Quickly in cahoots opposing him include the lawman Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the fearsome mill owner Madam Sjödahl (the actress), observed initially dismissing a recently mangled laborer with a month’s pay while he is still babbling upon seeing his crushed hand, and all others who profit from a populace who can be bought with some containers of liquor sold by the creepy store owner the merchant Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). However, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes when travelling artist the artist Beronius arrives in the story (Simon J Berger, delivering a performance of exceptional discomfiting power). If they are – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, they still serve as effective ones.
Plot Progression
Once the foundations of conflict planted, it is time to get down with the storyline. The maid from the doctor’s house, Hilda (the actress), duly vanishes in the forest. Signs of her flight and animal scratches upon a trunk get discovered yet she remains completely absent. Gossip and anxieties regarding a human-devouring beast prowling the woodland spread, yet the clergyman has another theory that he and Jussi set out to verify.
An Odd Beast
This Bear Drama is a slightly odd beast. It conjures a strong impression of the desolation that allows suspicion and bias and dark myths flourish from the native legend that animals can be controlled or possessed by the spirits of men. And it doesn’t idealising the tough existence led by the villagers, in which brutality, be it from the wild or people, always looms at the periphery, poised to explode. Yet the personas rarely become beyond symbols – or perhaps, as the struggles between justice and vengeance, rationality and religion, virtue and wickedness intensify, representative characters in a fable – preventing the entire production fully coming to life.
Stylistic Shifts
And then, there are numerous tonally jarring moments in which the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and discern the maid’s destiny becomes almost risible. He stands observing broken milk pots and clumps of hair within storage sheds as a fusion of the Belgian detective the English sleuth – alongside Jussi a rather hapless Hastings-cum-Watson (neither of whom were required to taste a blend 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 extracting a body out of a swamp.
Opposing Goals
The local leaders are determined proving that Hilda met her end by a bear, maybe to protect the peace, perhaps to protect one of their own. The clergyman is intent on proving otherwise, and the proof so quickly stacks up supporting his view that again the drama’s plausibility and audience tolerance are tested. In its finest moments, To Cook a Bear evokes memories of the TV version some years back of Sarah Perry’s The Essex Serpent, through its portrayal of the opposing allures and terrors offered by science and belief. At its worst, it’s more like a bear-themed police procedural. Nevertheless, it appears to provide the answer to that debated question: “Females, choose the animal.”
The series is on Disney+ currently.
