A heated debate recently spread widely on social media, following someone asked the question for females: which would you prefer be lost in the woods alongside a male or a bear? Like all the most engaging hypothetical scenarios, it revealed wildly different perspectives and experiences, illuminated chasms among genders, and could easily cause an existential crisis if you thought about it extensively. Additionally, there came the predictable follow-up where some males came online to inform women how stupid they were to select the animal and proceeded to limn the consequences they deserved for that choice. This at minimum enabled those females who were uncertain about their decision to make it with renewed assurance.
Dramatising the Setup
The Bear-Cooking Tale skillfully brings to life this clever small premise. This six-episode series is adapted from Swedish author the novelist’s 2018 novel with the identical title (translated in 2020 for English readers). It follows the struggles of a clergyman (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his household as they come to start a fresh religious post in Kengis, a remote village in Sweden’s north, during the mid-19th century. In a place with few pleasures, none of the inhabitants particularly warm to his strict stance on drinking and revelry, but it is his defense of impoverished people – particularly the indigenous Sami, from among whom hails the pastor’s foster child the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his conviction in social justice and equality that sets him on a collision course against the Kengis powers that be.
The Opposing Forces
Quickly collaborating against him are the lawman the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the fearsome mill owner Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed early on dismissing a newly injured laborer with minimal compensation as he remains gibbering at the sight his crushed hand, and all others who profit from a populace easily swayed for a few bottles of the whisky provided by the unsettling shopkeeper the merchant Lindmark (the actor). However, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes when travelling artist Beronius appears on the scene (the performer, providing an acting turn of rare unsettling intensity). If they are – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, they still serve as effective ones.
Plot Progression
Once the foundations of tension sown, it is time to proceed with the storyline. The servant employed by the doctor, Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), duly goes missing from the woods. Indications of her escape and animal scratches on a tree get discovered yet she remains completely absent. Rumours and fears of a man/maid-eating bear roaming the woods 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 peculiar show. It creates a strong impression of the desolation that lets suspicion and prejudice and grim legends thrive based on local folklore that bears might be dominated or inhabited by the souls of men. It avoids idealising the tough existence led by the villagers, where violence, whether that of nature or mankind, lurks constantly at the periphery, poised to explode. Yet the personas rarely become beyond symbols – or maybe, while the conflicts between justice and revenge, rationality and religion, good and evil escalate, representative characters within a moral tale – preventing the entire production fully coming to life.
Stylistic Shifts
Additionally, exist numerous stylistically clashing moments in which the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and discern Hilda’s fate turns nearly laughable. He positions himself looking at shattered containers and clumps of hair in hay barns as a fusion of Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – with Jussi a rather hapless Hastings-cum-Watson (neither of whom had to taste a blend of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to agree that indeed, it was definitely coagulated blood on the site), before announcing his latest deduction and pulling a corpse from a bog.
Clashing Agendas
The village elite are determined proving that Hilda met her end by an animal, perhaps to preserve the peace, or possibly to shield one of their own. The pastor is bent on establishing otherwise, and the proof so rapidly accumulates supporting his view that again the show’s credibility and the viewer’s patience get strained. At its best, the series is reminiscent of the TV version a few years ago of the author’s The Essex Serpent, through its portrayal of the opposing attractions and fears presented by science and religion. At its worst, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it appears to provide the response to that debated question: “Females, choose the animal.”
To Cook a Bear is on Disney+ currently.
