An heated discussion lately went viral on social media, after a user asked a query to women: would you rather be lost in a forest with a man or with a bear? Similar to the best hypothetical scenarios, it revealed wildly different perspectives and life encounters, illuminated divides between the sexes, and was likely to induce an existential crisis if you thought on it for too long. There was also the almost inevitable coda in which some males took to the internet to tell females how foolish they were to select the animal and proceeded to limn the consequences they merited for it. This at minimum enabled those females who were uncertain about their decision to decide with a new confidence.
Portraying the Setup
The Bear-Cooking Tale skillfully dramatises this nifty small premise. The six-part series is adapted from Swedish author the novelist’s 2018 novel of the same name (rendered two years later for an English audience). It follows the tribulations of a clergyman (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his family when they arrive to begin a new ministry in Kengis, an isolated village in Sweden’s north, during the mid-19th century. In a place with few pleasures, none of the locals especially appreciate his strict stance on alcohol and dancing, but it is his protection of the poor – especially the native Sami population, from which comes the preacher’s foster child the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his belief in social justice and equality that places him on a collision course against the Kengis local authorities.
The Antagonists
Quickly collaborating opposing him are the sheriff the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the fearsome mill owner the matron Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed initially dismissing a recently mangled laborer with minimal compensation as he remains babbling at the sight his crushed hand, and all others who benefit from a community who can be bought with some containers of liquor sold by the unsettling store owner Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). However, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes when itinerant painter Beronius arrives on the scene (Simon J Berger, providing a performance of exceptional discomfiting power). If they are – like the pastor himself – only a little more than caricatures, they still serve as potent archetypes.
Narrative Development
With the seeds of tension sown, it is time to get down to narrative business. The maid employed by the doctor, the character Hilda (the actress), duly goes missing in the forest. Indications of her escape and animal scratches on a tree are found but she is nowhere to be seen. Gossip and fears of a man/maid-eating beast prowling the woodland circulate, but the pastor has another theory that he and Jussi embark to verify.
A Strange Creation
This Bear Drama is a slightly odd beast. It conjures a strong impression of the desolation that allows suspicion and bias and grim legends thrive from the native legend that bears might be dominated or inhabited by the souls of men. It avoids romanticise the tough existence led by the villagers, in which brutality, be it from nature or people, lurks constantly at the periphery, poised to explode. But the characters seldom evolve more than ciphers – or maybe, while the conflicts between justice and revenge, logic and faith, good and evil escalate, emblematic figures within a moral tale – preventing the entire production fully becoming immersive.
Stylistic Shifts
Additionally, exist the many tonally jarring instances in which the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and discern Hilda’s fate turns almost risible. He stands observing broken milk pots and strands of fur in hay barns as a fusion of Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (none of whom were required to taste a mixture of blood droplets and saliva from his superior to confirm that, yes, it was clearly coagulated blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his latest deduction and extracting a corpse out of a swamp.
Clashing Agendas
The village elite are determined proving that the maid met her end by an animal, maybe to protect the peace, or possibly to protect one of their own. The clergyman is bent on proving otherwise, and the proof so quickly stacks up supporting his view that once more the show’s credibility and audience tolerance are tested. In its finest moments, To Cook a Bear evokes memories of the adaptation a few years ago of Sarah Perry’s The Essex Serpent, with its evocation of the opposing allures and fears presented by rational thought and religion. At its worst, it’s more like Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Nevertheless, it appears to provide the response to the earlier query: “Females, choose the animal.”
To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ now.
