A heated debate lately spread widely across online platforms, following someone asked the question to women: would you rather find yourself stranded in a forest alongside a male or with a bear? Like all the best hypothetical scenarios, it exposed wildly different perspectives and life encounters, illuminated chasms between the sexes, and could easily to induce a deep personal dilemma if you thought on it for too long. Additionally, there came the predictable follow-up in which some males took to the internet to tell women how foolish they were for choosing the bear and went on to describe the consequences they merited for that choice. This at minimum allowed those females who were uncertain about their decision to decide with renewed assurance.
Portraying the Setup
The Bear-Cooking Tale effectively brings to life this nifty small premise. The six-part series is based from Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s 2018 novel with the identical title (rendered two years later for English readers). It traces the tribulations of a pastor (the lead actor) and his family when they arrive to start a new ministry in Kengis, an isolated settlement in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. In a place lacking many joys, none of the locals especially appreciate his strict approach to drinking and dancing, yet it is his protection of the poor – especially the native Sami population, from which comes the preacher’s foster child Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his conviction in social justice and equal rights that sets him in direct opposition against the Kengis powers that be.
The Antagonists
Quickly in cahoots opposing him include the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the intimidating factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (the actress), observed initially dismissing a recently mangled worker with minimal compensation as he remains gibbering at the sight his crushed hand, and all others who profit from a community easily swayed for a few bottles of liquor provided by the creepy store owner the merchant Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, to be fair, Lindmark’s eeriness pales when itinerant painter Beronius appears on the scene (the performer, providing an acting turn of exceptional discomfiting power). If they are – like the pastor himself – just slightly beyond than caricatures, they are at least potent archetypes.
Narrative Development
Once the foundations of tension sown, the moment arrives to proceed to narrative business. The maid from the doctor’s house, Hilda (the actress), accordingly goes missing from the woods. Indications of her escape and animal scratches upon a trunk are found but she is completely absent. Rumours and fears of a man/maid-eating beast roaming the woods spread, but the pastor holds a different view that he and Jussi set out to prove.
An Odd Beast
This Bear Drama is a slightly peculiar show. It creates a strong impression of the bleakness that allows distrust and bias and dark myths flourish from the native legend that animals can be controlled or inhabited by the spirits of humans. It avoids idealising the hardscrabble life experienced by the residents, in which violence, whether that of nature or mankind, always looms at the periphery, poised to explode. Yet the personas seldom evolve beyond symbols – or maybe, while the conflicts between justice and revenge, logic and religion, virtue and evil intensify, emblematic figures in a fable – preventing the whole thing truly coming to life.
Tonal Inconsistencies
And then, there are the many tonally jarring moments in which the pastor’s ability to discover clues and discern the maid’s destiny turns nearly laughable. He positions himself observing broken milk pots and strands of fur in hay barns as a fusion of Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (none of whom had to lick a blend of blood droplets and saliva from his superior to confirm that indeed, it was clearly coagulated blood at the crime scene), before announcing his latest deduction and extracting a body out of a swamp.
Opposing Goals
The local leaders are determined proving that the maid was killed by a bear, maybe to protect the calm, or possibly to protect one of their own. The pastor is bent on proving the opposite, and the proof so rapidly stacks up supporting his view that once more the drama’s plausibility and the viewer’s patience are tested. At its best, To Cook a Bear is reminiscent of the TV version some years back of the author’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the opposing attractions and fears presented by rational thought and religion. In its low points, it’s more like a bear-themed police procedural. Still, it does seem to offer the response to that debated question: “Ladies, take the bear.”
The series streams on Disney+ currently.
