A intense discussion lately spread widely on social media, after someone posed a query for females: which would you prefer find yourself stranded in the woods alongside a male or with a bear? Similar to the best hypothetical scenarios, it exposed wildly different perspectives and experiences, highlighted chasms between the sexes, and was likely cause a deep personal dilemma for anyone pondering about it for too long. There was also the predictable coda in which men of a certain stripe came online to tell women how foolish they had been to select the bear and went on to describe the consequences they merited for it. This at minimum enabled the women who were uncertain about their decision to make it with renewed assurance.
Dramatising the Scenario
The Bear-Cooking Tale effectively dramatises this clever little setup. The six-part drama is adapted from Swedish author the novelist’s 2018 novel with the identical title (translated in 2020 for an English audience). It follows the tribulations of a clergyman (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his household when they arrive to begin a new ministry in Kengis, an isolated village in northern Sweden, in 1852. In a place lacking many joys, none of the inhabitants especially warm to his strict approach to alcohol and dancing, but it is his protection of impoverished people – particularly the indigenous Sami, from among whom hails the preacher’s adopted son the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his conviction in societal fairness and equality that places him in direct opposition against the Kengis powers that be.
The Antagonists
Soon in cahoots opposing him include the sheriff the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the fearsome factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed initially dismissing a newly injured laborer with minimal compensation while he is still gibbering at the sight of his pulped hand, and anyone else who profit from a community easily swayed with some containers of the whisky sold by the unsettling store owner Lindmark (the actor). However, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness pales once itinerant painter Beronius appears on the scene (Simon J Berger, providing a performance of rare unsettling intensity). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – only a little more being stereotypes, they still serve as effective ones.
Narrative Development
Once the foundations of conflict sown, the moment arrives to proceed with the storyline. The maid from the doctor’s house, the character Hilda (the actress), accordingly goes missing from the woods. Indications of her escape and bear markings upon a trunk are found yet she remains nowhere to be seen. Gossip and fears of a man/maid-eating bear prowling the woodland circulate, but the pastor holds a different view which he and his ward embark to verify.
A Strange Creation
This Bear Drama is a slightly peculiar show. It creates a fine sense of the bleakness that allows distrust and prejudice and dark myths flourish based on local folklore that bears might be dominated or possessed by the spirits of men. And it doesn’t idealising the hardscrabble life experienced by the residents, in which violence, whether that of nature or mankind, lurks constantly on the edges, poised to explode. Yet the personas rarely become beyond symbols – or maybe, as the struggles between justice and revenge, rationality and faith, good and wickedness escalate, representative characters in a fable – preventing the entire production fully coming to life.
Tonal Inconsistencies
And then, there are numerous tonally jarring moments in which the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and discern the maid’s destiny becomes nearly laughable. He positions himself looking at shattered containers and clumps of hair in hay barns like a combined Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – with Jussi a rather hapless Hastings-cum-Watson (none of whom were required to taste a mixture of blood droplets and saliva from his superior to agree that indeed, it was definitely dried blood on the site), before announcing his latest deduction and extracting a corpse from a bog.
Opposing Goals
The local leaders are determined proving that Hilda met her end by a bear, perhaps to preserve the peace, perhaps to shield a fellow elite. The clergyman is bent on establishing otherwise, and the proof so rapidly 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 some years back of the author’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the opposing attractions and terrors presented by rational thought and religion. In its low points, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it does seem to provide the answer to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”
To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ now.
