A heated debate recently spread widely across online platforms, following someone asked the question for females: which would you prefer be lost in the woods with a man or a bear? Similar to the most engaging thought experiments, it revealed wildly different perspectives and life encounters, illuminated chasms among genders, and was likely cause an existential crisis if you thought about it extensively. There was also the almost inevitable follow-up in which men of a certain stripe took to the internet to tell women how stupid they had been for choosing the animal and proceeded to limn the punishments they deserved for it. This at least allowed those females who were uncertain over their choice to decide with a new confidence.
Dramatising the Setup
The Bear-Cooking Tale skillfully dramatises this nifty little setup. This six-episode drama is adapted from Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s 2018 book with the identical title (rendered in 2020 for an English audience). It follows the struggles of a clergyman (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his family as they come to begin a new ministry in Kengis, an isolated village in Sweden’s north, during the mid-19th century. Within a community with few pleasures, none of the locals particularly warm to his strict approach to alcohol and revelry, yet it is his defense of impoverished people – especially the native Sami population, from which hails the preacher’s adopted son the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in societal fairness and equal rights that sets him on a collision course with the Kengis powers that be.
The Opposing Forces
Soon collaborating opposing him include the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating mill owner Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed initially firing a recently mangled laborer with minimal compensation as he remains gibbering upon seeing of his pulped hand, and anyone else who profit from a populace who can be bought with some containers of liquor sold by the creepy store owner the merchant Lindmark (the actor). Although, to be fair, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes when itinerant painter Beronius appears on the scene (Simon J Berger, providing a performance of rare discomfiting power). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, they are at least potent archetypes.
Plot Progression
Once the foundations of conflict sown, the moment arrives to get down to narrative business. The maid from the doctor’s house, the character Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), accordingly vanishes from the woods. Signs of her escape and bear markings upon a trunk get discovered yet she remains completely absent. Rumours and fears regarding a human-devouring bear roaming the woods spread, yet the clergyman has another theory which he and his ward embark to prove.
An Odd Beast
This Bear Drama is a slightly peculiar show. It conjures a strong impression of the bleakness that allows suspicion and bias and grim legends flourish from the native legend that animals might be dominated or possessed by the spirits of men. It avoids romanticise the tough existence experienced by the residents, where brutality, be it from nature or mankind, lurks constantly on the edges, waiting to erupt. But the characters rarely become more than ciphers – or maybe, while the conflicts amid fairness and vengeance, rationality and faith, virtue and wickedness escalate, representative characters within a moral tale – preventing the entire production fully coming to life.
Stylistic Shifts
Additionally, there are the many stylistically clashing moments in which the pastor’s ability to discover clues and discern Hilda’s fate turns nearly laughable. He positions himself observing broken milk pots and clumps of hair within storage sheds like a combined the Belgian detective and Sherlock Holmes – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (none of whom were required to lick a mixture of blood droplets and the boss’s spit to confirm that, yes, it was clearly dried blood on the site), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and extracting a corpse out of a swamp.
Clashing Agendas
The village elite are determined proving that Hilda met her end by a bear, maybe to preserve the calm, perhaps to protect a fellow elite. The clergyman is bent on proving the opposite, and the evidence so quickly accumulates in his favour that again the drama’s plausibility and audience tolerance are tested. At its best, To Cook a Bear is reminiscent of the adaptation some years back of the author’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the competing attractions and terrors offered by science and religion. In its low points, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it does seem to provide the answer to that debated question: “Females, choose the animal.”
To Cook a Bear is on Disney+ now.
