A heated discussion lately spread widely across online platforms, following someone asked a query for females: would you rather find yourself stranded in a forest with a man or with a bear? Similar to the most engaging hypothetical scenarios, it revealed wildly different perspectives and experiences, highlighted divides between the sexes, and was likely cause an existential crisis if you thought on it for too long. Additionally, there came the predictable follow-up in which men of a certain stripe took to the internet to tell women how stupid they were to select the bear and proceeded to describe the punishments they merited for it. This at least allowed the women who had been hesitating about their decision to decide with a new confidence.
Portraying the Scenario
The Bear-Cooking Tale effectively brings to life this clever small premise. The six-part series is adapted on Swedish author the novelist’s 2018 book with the identical title (rendered in 2020 for English readers). It traces the tribulations of a pastor (the lead actor) and his household when they arrive to begin a fresh religious post in Kengis, a remote settlement in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. Within a community lacking many joys, none of the locals particularly appreciate his puritanical stance on drinking and revelry, yet it is his protection of the poor – particularly the indigenous Sami, from among whom hails the pastor’s adopted son the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his conviction in social justice and equality that sets him in direct opposition against the Kengis local authorities.
The Antagonists
Soon collaborating against him are the lawman the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the intimidating factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (the actress), seen early on dismissing a recently mangled worker with a month’s pay while he is still babbling upon seeing his crushed hand, and all others who benefit from a community easily swayed for a few bottles of liquor provided by the unsettling store owner the merchant Lindmark (the actor). However, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes when itinerant painter Beronius arrives on the scene (Simon J Berger, delivering a performance of exceptional discomfiting power). While they remain – like the pastor himself – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, they still serve as potent archetypes.
Plot Progression
Once the foundations of tension planted, the moment arrives to get down with the storyline. The maid employed by the doctor, Hilda (the actress), duly vanishes from the woods. Indications of her escape and animal scratches upon a trunk get discovered yet she remains nowhere to be seen. Rumours and fears of a man/maid-eating bear roaming the woods spread, but the pastor holds a different view that he and Jussi set out to prove.
A Strange Creation
This Bear Drama is a slightly peculiar show. It creates a fine sense of the desolation that allows distrust and bias and dark myths flourish from the native legend that bears might be dominated or possessed by the spirits of men. And it doesn’t idealising the tough existence led by the villagers, where brutality, whether that of nature or mankind, always looms on the edges, poised to explode. Yet the personas seldom evolve beyond symbols – or maybe, as the struggles between justice and vengeance, logic and faith, virtue and evil escalate, representative characters in a fable – which stops the whole thing truly coming to life.
Tonal Inconsistencies
And then, exist numerous tonally jarring moments where the pastor’s ability to discover clues and determine the maid’s destiny turns nearly laughable. He stands looking at broken milk pots and strands of fur within storage sheds as a fusion of Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (none of whom were required to taste a blend of blood spatter and the boss’s spit to agree that, yes, it was clearly coagulated blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and extracting a body from a bog.
Clashing Agendas
The local leaders are determined proving that the maid met her end by an animal, perhaps to protect the peace, or possibly to protect one of their own. The pastor is intent on establishing the opposite, and the evidence so quickly stacks up supporting his view that again the show’s credibility and the viewer’s patience get strained. In its finest moments, the series is reminiscent of the TV version a few years ago of the author’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the opposing attractions and terrors presented by science and religion. At its worst, it resembles a bear-themed police procedural. Nevertheless, it appears to offer the answer to the earlier query: “Females, choose the animal.”
To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ now.
