An heated debate recently spread widely on social media, following a user posed a query to women: which would you prefer find yourself stranded in a forest alongside a male or a bear? Like all the most engaging hypothetical scenarios, it revealed vastly opposing worldviews and life encounters, illuminated chasms among genders, and could easily to induce an existential crisis if you thought on it extensively. There was also the almost inevitable coda where some males took to the internet to tell females how stupid they had been to select the bear and proceeded to limn the consequences they deserved for that choice. This at least enabled the women who were uncertain over their choice to decide with renewed assurance.
Portraying the Scenario
The Bear-Cooking Tale effectively dramatises this nifty little setup. The six-part series is adapted from Scandinavian writer the novelist’s 2018 book with the identical title (rendered in 2020 for English readers). It follows the struggles of a pastor (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his household as they come to begin a new ministry in Kengis, an isolated village in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. In a place lacking many joys, not one of the locals especially appreciate his strict approach to alcohol and revelry, but it is his defense of impoverished people – particularly the indigenous Sami, from among whom hails the preacher’s adopted son the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in social justice and equality that sets him in direct opposition with the Kengis local authorities.
The Opposing Forces
Quickly in cahoots against him include the lawman the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the intimidating factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed early on dismissing a newly injured laborer with minimal compensation as he remains babbling upon seeing his crushed hand, and anyone else who profit from a community who can be bought for a few bottles of liquor sold by the creepy shopkeeper the merchant Lindmark (the actor). However, to be fair, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes when travelling artist the artist Beronius arrives in the story (Simon J Berger, providing a performance of rare discomfiting power). If they are – like the pastor himself – just slightly beyond than caricatures, they are at least potent archetypes.
Narrative Development
With the seeds of conflict sown, the moment arrives to proceed to narrative business. The maid from the doctor’s house, the character Hilda (the actress), duly vanishes in the forest. Signs of her escape and bear markings on a tree are found but she is nowhere to be seen. Rumours and anxieties regarding a human-devouring bear roaming the woodland spread, yet the clergyman has another theory which he and his ward embark to verify.
An Odd Beast
This Bear Drama is a somewhat odd beast. It conjures a fine sense of the desolation that allows distrust and prejudice and dark myths flourish from the native legend that animals might be dominated or possessed by the souls of humans. And it doesn’t romanticise the tough existence led by the villagers, where violence, whether that of nature or mankind, lurks constantly on the edges, poised to explode. Yet the personas seldom evolve more than ciphers – or perhaps, while the conflicts between justice and vengeance, rationality and religion, good and wickedness intensify, representative characters within a moral tale – which stops the whole thing fully becoming immersive.
Tonal Inconsistencies
And then, there are the many stylistically clashing moments where the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and discern Hilda’s fate becomes nearly laughable. He stands observing shattered containers and strands of fur within storage sheds like a combined the Belgian detective the English sleuth – alongside Jussi a rather hapless Hastings-cum-Watson (none of whom had to taste a blend of blood spatter and the boss’s spit to confirm that, yes, it was definitely coagulated blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his latest deduction and pulling a corpse out of a swamp.
Clashing Agendas
The village elite are bent on demonstrating that Hilda was killed by a bear, maybe to protect the peace, perhaps to shield one of their own. The clergyman is intent on proving the opposite, and the evidence so quickly stacks up in his favour that again the drama’s plausibility and the viewer’s patience get strained. In its finest moments, To Cook a Bear is reminiscent of the TV version a few years ago of the author’s The Essex Serpent, through its portrayal of the opposing allures and fears offered by science and belief. In its low points, it’s more like a bear-themed police procedural. Nevertheless, it does seem to offer the answer to that debated question: “Ladies, take the bear.”
The series streams on Disney+ currently.
