An heated discussion lately spread widely across online platforms, following someone asked a query to women: would you rather be lost in the woods with a man or a bear? Similar to the most engaging thought experiments, it revealed vastly opposing worldviews and life encounters, illuminated divides among genders, and could easily to induce a deep personal dilemma if you thought on it extensively. Additionally, there came the predictable coda in which men of a certain stripe took to the internet to tell females how stupid they were to select the bear and went on to limn the punishments they merited for that choice. This at least enabled the women who had been hesitating about their decision to make it with renewed assurance.
Portraying the Scenario
The Bear-Cooking Tale effectively dramatises this clever small premise. The six-part drama is based on Swedish author the novelist’s 2018 novel with the identical title (rendered two years later for English readers). It follows the tribulations of a clergyman (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his family as they come to start a new ministry within Kengis, an isolated village in northern Sweden, in 1852. Within a community with few pleasures, none of the locals especially warm to his strict stance on alcohol and revelry, yet it is his defense of impoverished people – especially the indigenous Sami, from which hails the preacher’s foster child Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in social justice and equal rights that places him on a collision course with the Kengis local authorities.
The Antagonists
Soon in cahoots opposing him are the lawman Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the fearsome mill owner Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen initially dismissing a recently mangled worker with minimal compensation while he is still gibbering upon seeing his crushed hand, and all others who profit from a community easily swayed for a few bottles of liquor sold by the unsettling store owner the merchant Lindmark (the actor). Although, to be fair, Lindmark’s eeriness pales when travelling artist Beronius arrives in the story (Simon J Berger, providing a performance of exceptional unsettling intensity). If they are – similar to the clergyman – only a little more being stereotypes, they still serve as effective ones.
Narrative Development
With the seeds of conflict sown, it is time to get down to narrative business. The servant from the doctor’s house, Hilda (the actress), accordingly goes missing in the forest. Indications of her flight and animal scratches on a tree get discovered but she is completely absent. Gossip and anxieties of a man/maid-eating bear roaming the woodland spread, yet the clergyman holds a different view that he and Jussi embark to verify.
An Odd Beast
This Bear Drama is a somewhat odd beast. It creates a strong impression of the bleakness that allows suspicion and prejudice and grim legends flourish from the native legend that bears might be dominated or possessed by the souls of men. It avoids idealising the tough existence led by the villagers, where violence, be it from nature or mankind, always looms on the edges, waiting to erupt. But the characters rarely become more than ciphers – or perhaps, as the struggles between justice and vengeance, rationality and faith, good and wickedness intensify, representative characters within a moral tale – preventing the whole thing truly becoming immersive.
Stylistic Shifts
And then, there are the many stylistically clashing instances in which the pastor’s ability to discover clues and determine the maid’s destiny becomes nearly laughable. He stands observing shattered containers and strands of fur within storage sheds like a combined Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – alongside Jussi a rather hapless assistant figure (neither of whom were required to taste a mixture of blood droplets and the boss’s spit to agree that indeed, it was clearly dried blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his latest deduction and pulling a corpse from a bog.
Opposing Goals
The local leaders are determined demonstrating that the maid met her end by an animal, maybe to preserve the peace, perhaps to shield one of their own. The pastor is intent on proving otherwise, and the proof so quickly stacks up in his favour that once more the drama’s plausibility and the viewer’s patience are tested. In its finest moments, To Cook a Bear evokes memories of the TV version a few years ago of the author’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the opposing allures and fears presented by rational thought and belief. In its low points, it’s more like a bear-themed police procedural. Nevertheless, it appears to offer the response to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”
To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ now.
