A intense debate recently went viral across online platforms, after a user asked the question to women: would you rather be lost in the woods alongside a male or a bear? Like all the most engaging thought experiments, it exposed wildly different perspectives and experiences, highlighted chasms between the sexes, and was likely to induce an existential crisis if you thought on it for too long. There was also the almost inevitable coda where some males came online to inform females how foolish they were to select the animal and proceeded to limn the consequences they merited for it. This at minimum allowed the women who had been hesitating over their choice to decide with renewed assurance.
Portraying the Setup
The Bear-Cooking Tale effectively brings to life this clever little setup. The six-part drama is based from Swedish author the novelist’s 2018 book with the identical title (rendered in 2020 for an English audience). It traces the struggles of a pastor (the lead actor) and his family when they arrive to start a fresh religious post in Kengis, an isolated village in northern Sweden, in 1852. In a place lacking many joys, not one of the inhabitants especially appreciate his puritanical approach to alcohol and dancing, yet it is his protection of the poor – particularly the native Sami population, from which comes the pastor’s foster child the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his conviction in social justice and equal rights that places him in direct opposition with the Kengis local authorities.
The Antagonists
Quickly in cahoots opposing him are the lawman Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the fearsome mill owner Madam Sjödahl (the actress), seen early on firing a newly injured laborer with minimal compensation while he is still gibbering at the sight of his pulped hand, and all others who benefit from a populace easily swayed for a few bottles of liquor sold by the unsettling shopkeeper Lindmark (the actor). Although, to be fair, Lindmark’s creepiness pales once itinerant painter Beronius appears in the story (Simon J Berger, providing a performance of exceptional unsettling intensity). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – only a little more being stereotypes, they are at least effective ones.
Narrative Development
Once the foundations of tension sown, the moment arrives to proceed with the storyline. The maid from the doctor’s house, Hilda (the actress), duly vanishes in the forest. Signs of her flight and animal scratches upon a trunk are found yet she remains nowhere to be seen. Rumours and anxieties regarding a human-devouring bear roaming the woodland circulate, yet the clergyman holds a different view which he and his ward set out to prove.
A Strange Creation
This Bear Drama is a somewhat odd beast. It conjures a fine sense of the desolation that allows distrust and bias and grim legends flourish based on local folklore that animals can be controlled or possessed by the souls of humans. And it doesn’t idealising the hardscrabble life experienced by the residents, in which brutality, be it from nature or mankind, always looms on the edges, waiting to erupt. But the characters seldom evolve more than ciphers – or maybe, while the conflicts amid fairness and revenge, logic and faith, good and evil escalate, representative characters in a fable – preventing the entire production fully coming to life.
Stylistic Shifts
Additionally, there are the many tonally jarring instances where the pastor’s ability to discover clues and determine Hilda’s fate turns nearly laughable. He stands observing broken milk pots and strands of fur within storage sheds as a fusion of the Belgian detective the English sleuth – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (neither of whom had to taste a blend of blood spatter and the boss’s spit to agree that indeed, it was clearly dried blood on the site), before announcing his latest deduction and pulling a body from a bog.
Opposing Goals
The village elite are bent on proving that the maid was killed by an animal, maybe to preserve the calm, or possibly to protect one of their own. The clergyman is bent on establishing otherwise, and the proof so quickly stacks up in his favour that once more the drama’s plausibility and audience tolerance get strained. At its best, the series is reminiscent of the TV version a few years ago of Sarah Perry’s The Essex Serpent, through its portrayal of the competing attractions and terrors offered by rational thought and religion. At its worst, it resembles a bear-themed police procedural. Still, it does seem to provide the answer to the earlier query: “Females, choose the animal.”
To Cook a Bear is on Disney+ now.
