A heated discussion lately spread widely on social media, following someone asked a query for females: which would you prefer be lost in the woods alongside a male or a bear? Like all the best thought experiments, it exposed wildly different worldviews and life encounters, highlighted divides between the sexes, and could easily to induce a deep personal dilemma if you thought on it extensively. There was also the almost inevitable coda in which men of a certain stripe took to the internet to inform women how foolish they had been for choosing the bear and proceeded to describe the consequences they merited for it. This at minimum allowed those females who were uncertain over their choice to make it with a new confidence.
Dramatising the Scenario
The Bear-Cooking Tale skillfully dramatises this nifty little setup. The six-part drama is adapted on Scandinavian writer the novelist’s 2018 novel of the same name (rendered in 2020 for an English audience). It follows the struggles of a pastor (the lead actor) and his household when they arrive to begin a fresh religious post within Kengis, a remote settlement in Sweden’s north, during the mid-19th century. Within a community with few pleasures, not one of the inhabitants particularly appreciate his strict approach to alcohol and revelry, yet it is his defense of impoverished people – particularly the indigenous Sami, from among whom hails the pastor’s adopted son Jussi (the young actor) – and his conviction in social justice and equality that sets him in direct opposition against the Kengis local authorities.
The Opposing Forces
Quickly in cahoots against him are the sheriff the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating mill owner Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen early on firing a newly injured laborer with minimal compensation as he remains gibbering upon seeing his crushed hand, and anyone else who benefit from a populace who can be bought for a few bottles of liquor sold by the unsettling shopkeeper the merchant Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes once travelling artist the artist Beronius appears on the scene (the performer, delivering a performance of rare unsettling intensity). While they remain – like the pastor himself – just slightly beyond than caricatures, they still serve as effective ones.
Narrative Development
Once the foundations of tension sown, the moment arrives to proceed to narrative business. The maid employed by the doctor, the character Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), accordingly goes missing from the woods. Signs of her escape and bear markings upon a trunk get discovered but she is completely absent. Rumours and anxieties regarding a human-devouring beast prowling the woods circulate, but the pastor holds a different view which he and his ward set out to verify.
A Strange Creation
To Cook a Bear is a somewhat peculiar show. It conjures a strong impression of the desolation that allows suspicion and prejudice and grim legends thrive from the native legend that animals might be dominated or inhabited by the souls of humans. And it doesn’t idealising the tough existence led by the villagers, in which violence, whether that of the wild or people, lurks constantly on the edges, poised to explode. But the characters seldom evolve beyond symbols – or maybe, while the conflicts between justice and revenge, logic and religion, good and wickedness escalate, emblematic figures in a fable – preventing the whole thing truly becoming immersive.
Tonal Inconsistencies
And then, exist the many stylistically clashing instances where the clergyman’s skill to discover clues and discern the maid’s destiny becomes nearly laughable. He stands observing broken milk pots and strands of fur within storage sheds like a combined the Belgian detective the English sleuth – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (none of whom were required to taste a blend of blood spatter and the boss’s spit to confirm that indeed, it was definitely coagulated blood on the site), before announcing his newest conclusion and pulling a body out of a swamp.
Clashing Agendas
The village elite are bent on demonstrating that Hilda met her end by a bear, perhaps to protect the calm, perhaps to protect one of their own. The pastor is intent on proving otherwise, and the evidence so quickly stacks up in his favour that again the drama’s plausibility and audience tolerance get strained. At its best, To Cook a Bear evokes memories of the adaptation some years back of Sarah Perry’s The Essex Serpent, through its portrayal of the competing attractions and terrors presented by rational thought and religion. In its low points, it’s more like Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it appears to provide the response to that debated question: “Ladies, take the bear.”
To Cook a Bear is on Disney+ now.
