An heated debate lately went viral across online platforms, following a user asked a query for females: which would you prefer be lost in a forest alongside a male or with a bear? Like all the best thought experiments, it exposed wildly different worldviews and life encounters, highlighted divides between the sexes, and was likely to induce a deep personal dilemma for anyone pondering about it for too long. There was also the almost inevitable follow-up where some males took to the internet to inform women how stupid they had been to select the bear and went on to limn the punishments they deserved for it. This at minimum allowed those females who were uncertain about their decision to make it with a new confidence.
Portraying the Scenario
The Bear-Cooking Tale skillfully brings to life this clever little setup. The six-part drama is adapted on Swedish author the novelist’s 2018 novel with the identical title (translated two years later for English readers). It follows the struggles of a pastor (the lead actor) and his household when they arrive to start a fresh religious post within Kengis, a remote settlement in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. Within a community lacking many joys, none of the inhabitants particularly warm to his strict approach to drinking and revelry, yet it is his defense of impoverished people – especially the indigenous Sami, from among whom hails the pastor’s foster child the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in societal fairness and equality that sets him in direct opposition against the Kengis local authorities.
The Opposing Forces
Soon collaborating against him include the lawman Brahe (the performer), the fearsome mill owner Madam Sjödahl (the actress), observed early on firing a newly injured laborer with minimal compensation while he is still gibbering upon seeing of his pulped hand, and anyone else who benefit from a populace who can be bought with some containers of liquor sold by the unsettling store owner Lindmark (the actor). However, to be fair, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes when itinerant painter Beronius appears on the scene (the performer, providing an acting turn of rare discomfiting power). While they remain – 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 proceed with the storyline. The servant employed by the doctor, the character Hilda (the actress), accordingly vanishes from the woods. Indications of her flight and animal scratches upon a trunk get discovered yet she remains completely absent. Gossip and anxieties of a man/maid-eating beast roaming the woodland spread, yet the clergyman holds a different view that he and Jussi embark to prove.
A Strange Creation
To Cook a Bear is a somewhat odd beast. It creates a strong impression of the bleakness that lets distrust and bias and dark myths thrive based on local folklore that animals might be dominated or inhabited by the souls of humans. And it doesn’t idealising the tough existence led by the residents, in which violence, be it from the wild or mankind, lurks constantly on the edges, poised to explode. But the characters rarely become beyond symbols – or perhaps, while the conflicts between justice and revenge, logic and religion, good and evil intensify, emblematic figures in a fable – preventing the entire production truly coming to life.
Tonal Inconsistencies
Additionally, there are the many tonally jarring instances in which the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and discern Hilda’s fate becomes almost risible. He stands observing shattered containers and clumps of hair within storage sheds as a fusion of Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (neither of whom were required to taste a mixture of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to confirm that indeed, it was definitely dried blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and extracting a body from a bog.
Opposing Goals
The village elite are bent on demonstrating that the maid met her end by a bear, perhaps to preserve the peace, or possibly to shield one of their own. The clergyman is intent on proving the opposite, and the evidence so quickly stacks up supporting his view that again the show’s credibility and the viewer’s patience are tested. In its finest moments, To Cook a Bear is reminiscent of the TV version a few years ago of the author’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the opposing allures and terrors presented by science and religion. At its worst, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Nevertheless, it appears to provide the response to that debated question: “Females, choose the animal.”
The series is on Disney+ currently.
