An intense discussion lately went viral on social media, following a user posed the question for females: would you rather find yourself stranded in the woods with a man or a bear? Similar to the best thought experiments, it exposed wildly different perspectives and experiences, highlighted chasms between the sexes, and was likely to induce a deep personal dilemma for anyone pondering about it extensively. There was also the predictable follow-up in which men of a certain stripe came online to tell women how foolish they were to select the bear and went on to limn the punishments they merited for it. This at minimum allowed those females who were uncertain over their choice to decide with a new confidence.
Dramatising the Scenario
The Bear-Cooking Tale skillfully dramatises this clever little setup. This six-episode drama is based on Swedish author the novelist’s 2018 book of the same name (rendered two years later for an English audience). It follows the tribulations of a pastor (the lead actor) and his family as they come to begin a new ministry in Kengis, an isolated settlement in Sweden’s north, during the mid-19th century. Within a community with few pleasures, not one of the locals especially appreciate his strict approach to drinking and dancing, yet it is his protection of impoverished people – especially the indigenous Sami, from among whom comes the pastor’s adopted son Jussi (the young actor) – and his conviction in societal fairness and equality that places him in direct opposition with the Kengis powers that be.
The Opposing Forces
Quickly collaborating against him are the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the intimidating factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed early on dismissing a recently mangled laborer with minimal compensation as he remains gibbering at the sight his crushed hand, and anyone else who profit from a community easily swayed for a few bottles of liquor provided by the unsettling store owner Lindmark (the actor). However, to be fair, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes once travelling artist the artist Beronius arrives in the story (the performer, delivering a performance of rare unsettling intensity). If they are – like the pastor himself – only a little more than caricatures, they still serve as potent archetypes.
Plot Progression
With the seeds of conflict planted, the moment arrives to proceed to narrative business. The maid employed by the doctor, Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), duly goes missing in the forest. Indications of her escape and bear markings upon a trunk get discovered yet she remains completely absent. Rumours and anxieties of a man/maid-eating beast roaming the woods spread, yet the clergyman has another theory that he and Jussi set out to prove.
A Strange Creation
This Bear Drama is a slightly odd beast. It creates a strong impression of the bleakness that lets suspicion and prejudice and dark myths flourish based on local folklore that animals might be dominated or possessed by the souls of men. And it doesn’t idealising the hardscrabble life led by the residents, in which violence, whether that of nature or mankind, lurks constantly at the periphery, poised to explode. But the characters seldom evolve beyond symbols – or perhaps, while the conflicts between justice and vengeance, logic and faith, virtue and wickedness escalate, representative characters within a moral tale – preventing the whole thing fully coming to life.
Tonal Inconsistencies
And then, there are the many stylistically clashing moments where the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and determine the maid’s destiny turns almost risible. He stands observing shattered containers and strands of fur within storage sheds as a fusion of Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (none of whom had to lick a blend of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to agree that indeed, it was clearly coagulated blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and pulling a corpse out of a swamp.
Clashing Agendas
The local leaders are bent on proving that the maid met her end by an animal, maybe to preserve the calm, perhaps to shield a fellow elite. The clergyman is intent on proving the opposite, and the evidence so rapidly stacks up supporting his view that again the drama’s plausibility and the viewer’s patience get strained. At its best, the series evokes memories of the TV version some years back of the author’s The Essex Serpent, with its evocation of the opposing allures and fears presented by science and religion. In its low points, it’s more like Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Nevertheless, it does seem to offer the response to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”
To Cook a Bear is on Disney+ currently.
