A heated discussion lately spread widely on social media, following someone posed a query for females: would you rather find yourself stranded in a forest with a man or with a bear? Like all the most engaging hypothetical scenarios, it exposed wildly different perspectives and experiences, highlighted divides between the sexes, and was likely to induce a deep personal dilemma if you thought about it for too long. There was also the almost inevitable coda in which some males took to the internet to inform females how stupid they were for choosing the animal and proceeded to limn the punishments they deserved for that choice. This at least enabled those females who had been hesitating over their choice to make it with renewed assurance.
Portraying the Setup
The Bear-Cooking Tale effectively dramatises this nifty little setup. This six-episode series is based on Scandinavian writer the novelist’s 2018 novel with the identical title (translated in 2020 for an English audience). It follows the struggles of a clergyman (the lead actor) and his family when they arrive to begin a new ministry in Kengis, an isolated village in northern Sweden, in 1852. In a place with few pleasures, not one of the locals particularly appreciate his puritanical approach to drinking and dancing, yet it is his defense of the poor – particularly the indigenous Sami, from among whom hails the preacher’s adopted son Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his conviction in social justice and equality that sets him on a collision course against the Kengis powers that be.
The Opposing Forces
Soon in cahoots opposing him include the lawman Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating mill owner the matron Sjödahl (the actress), seen early on firing a recently mangled worker with minimal compensation while he is still gibbering at the sight of his pulped hand, and anyone else who profit from a populace easily swayed for a few bottles of the whisky sold by the unsettling store owner Lindmark (the actor). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness pales once itinerant painter the artist Beronius arrives in the story (the performer, providing a performance of exceptional discomfiting power). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond than caricatures, they are at least potent archetypes.
Plot Progression
Once the foundations of tension sown, it is time to proceed to narrative business. The servant employed by the doctor, Hilda (the actress), accordingly vanishes in the forest. Signs of her escape and bear markings on a tree get discovered yet she remains completely absent. Gossip and anxieties of a man/maid-eating beast roaming the woods spread, but the pastor holds a different view which he and his ward embark to prove.
A Strange Creation
This Bear Drama is a slightly peculiar show. It creates a fine sense of the desolation that allows distrust and bias and dark myths thrive based on local folklore that bears can be controlled or possessed by the spirits of humans. It avoids romanticise the hardscrabble life led by the residents, in which brutality, whether that of nature or mankind, lurks constantly on the edges, waiting to erupt. But the characters rarely become beyond symbols – or perhaps, while the conflicts between justice and revenge, logic and faith, virtue and evil intensify, representative characters in a fable – preventing the whole thing fully coming to life.
Stylistic Shifts
And then, there are the many stylistically clashing moments where the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and discern the maid’s destiny turns almost risible. He positions himself looking at broken milk pots and strands of fur within storage sheds as a fusion of the Belgian detective the English sleuth – with Jussi a rather hapless assistant figure (none of whom were required to taste a mixture of blood droplets and saliva from his superior to confirm that indeed, it was definitely coagulated blood at the crime scene), before announcing his newest conclusion and extracting a corpse out of a swamp.
Opposing Goals
The village elite are determined proving that Hilda was killed by an animal, maybe to preserve the peace, perhaps to shield one of their own. The clergyman is intent on proving the opposite, and the proof so rapidly stacks up supporting his view that again the drama’s plausibility and the viewer’s patience get strained. In its finest moments, the series is reminiscent of the adaptation a few years ago of Sarah Perry’s The Essex Serpent, through its portrayal of the opposing attractions and terrors offered by rational thought and religion. At its worst, it’s more like a bear-themed police procedural. Still, it appears to provide the response to that debated question: “Ladies, take the bear.”
To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ now.
