An heated debate lately spread widely on social media, following someone asked a query for females: would you rather be lost in the woods alongside a male or a bear? Like all the most engaging thought experiments, it exposed vastly opposing perspectives and life encounters, highlighted divides between the sexes, and was likely to induce a deep personal dilemma if you thought on it for too long. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable follow-up where men of a certain stripe came online to tell females how stupid they were to select the bear and went on to describe the consequences they merited for it. This at minimum allowed those females who were uncertain about their decision to make it with a new confidence.
Dramatising the Setup
The Bear-Cooking Tale effectively brings to life this nifty little setup. The six-part drama is adapted on Scandinavian writer Mikael Niemi’s 2018 book of the same name (translated two years later for English readers). It traces the struggles of a pastor (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his household when they arrive to begin a new ministry in Kengis, an isolated settlement in northern Sweden, in 1852. In a place with few pleasures, not one of the locals particularly appreciate his strict approach to drinking and dancing, but it is his defense of the poor – particularly the indigenous Sami, from among whom hails the pastor’s adopted son 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
Soon in cahoots opposing him are the lawman Brahe (the performer), the intimidating factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen initially dismissing a newly injured worker with minimal compensation as he remains gibbering at the sight his crushed hand, and all others who benefit from a community who can be bought with some containers of liquor provided by the creepy shopkeeper Lindmark (the actor). However, to be fair, Lindmark’s creepiness pales when itinerant painter the artist Beronius arrives on the scene (the performer, delivering an acting turn of rare unsettling intensity). While they remain – like the pastor himself – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, they still serve as potent archetypes.
Narrative Development
Once the foundations of conflict sown, it is time to get down with the storyline. The servant employed by the doctor, Hilda (the actress), accordingly vanishes in the forest. Indications of her flight and bear markings on a tree get discovered yet she remains nowhere to be seen. Rumours and fears of a man/maid-eating bear prowling the woodland spread, but the pastor has another theory which he and his ward embark to verify.
An Odd Beast
To Cook a Bear is a somewhat peculiar show. It creates a fine sense of the desolation that lets suspicion and prejudice and grim legends thrive based on local folklore that animals might be dominated or inhabited by the spirits of men. It avoids idealising the hardscrabble life experienced by the villagers, where violence, be it from nature or people, lurks constantly at the periphery, poised to explode. But the characters rarely become beyond symbols – or maybe, as the struggles amid fairness and revenge, rationality and faith, good and wickedness intensify, emblematic figures in a fable – preventing the entire production truly becoming immersive.
Stylistic Shifts
And then, there are numerous tonally jarring moments where the clergyman’s skill to discover clues and determine Hilda’s fate turns almost risible. He positions himself observing broken milk pots and clumps of hair in hay barns like a combined Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (none of whom had to taste a mixture of blood spatter and the boss’s spit to confirm that indeed, it was definitely coagulated blood on the site), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and extracting a corpse from a bog.
Clashing Agendas
The village elite are determined proving that the maid was killed by a bear, maybe to preserve the peace, perhaps to protect one of their own. The clergyman is bent on proving the opposite, and the proof so quickly stacks up supporting his view that once more the show’s credibility and audience tolerance are tested. In its finest moments, the series is reminiscent of the adaptation some years back of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the opposing attractions and fears presented by rational thought and belief. In its low points, it’s more like a bear-themed police procedural. Nevertheless, it does seem to offer the response to the earlier query: “Females, choose the animal.”
To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ currently.
