An heated debate lately went viral on social media, after someone posed a query to women: would you rather find yourself stranded in a forest with a man or with a bear? Similar to the most engaging thought experiments, it revealed vastly opposing worldviews and life encounters, illuminated chasms between the sexes, and was likely to induce a deep personal dilemma for anyone pondering on it extensively. Additionally, there came the predictable follow-up in which some males took to the internet to inform women how foolish they had been for choosing the bear and proceeded to limn the consequences they deserved for it. This at least enabled the women who had been hesitating about their decision to decide with renewed assurance.
Portraying the Setup
The Bear-Cooking Tale effectively brings to life this clever small premise. The six-part series is adapted on Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s 2018 novel with the identical title (translated two years later for English readers). It follows the struggles of a pastor (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his family when they arrive to start a fresh religious post in Kengis, an isolated village in northern Sweden, in 1852. Within a community with few pleasures, none of the locals particularly warm to his strict approach to alcohol and dancing, but it is his defense of the poor – particularly the indigenous Sami, from which hails the preacher’s adopted son Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his belief in social justice and equal rights that places him in direct opposition with the Kengis powers that be.
The Opposing Forces
Soon collaborating against him are the lawman Brahe (the performer), the intimidating factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed initially firing a recently mangled laborer with minimal compensation while he is still babbling at the sight of his pulped hand, and all others who profit from a community easily swayed for a few bottles of liquor sold by the unsettling store owner Lindmark (the actor). Although, to be fair, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes once travelling artist Beronius appears in the story (the performer, providing a performance of exceptional discomfiting power). If they are – similar to the clergyman – only a little more than caricatures, they are at least potent archetypes.
Plot Progression
With the seeds of conflict planted, the moment arrives to proceed with the storyline. The servant from the doctor’s house, the character Hilda (the actress), accordingly goes missing from the woods. Signs of her flight and animal scratches on a tree get discovered but she is completely absent. Gossip and fears regarding a human-devouring beast prowling the woodland spread, yet the clergyman has another theory which he and his ward set out to verify.
An Odd Beast
To Cook a Bear is a slightly odd beast. It creates a strong impression of the desolation that allows distrust and bias and dark myths flourish based on local folklore that bears might be dominated or possessed by the souls of men. It avoids romanticise the tough existence experienced by the villagers, where brutality, whether that of the wild or mankind, lurks constantly at the periphery, poised to explode. Yet the personas seldom evolve more than ciphers – or maybe, as the struggles amid fairness and revenge, rationality and faith, good and wickedness intensify, representative characters in a fable – preventing the entire production truly becoming immersive.
Stylistic Shifts
Additionally, exist numerous tonally jarring moments where the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and discern Hilda’s fate becomes almost risible. 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 taste a mixture of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to agree that, yes, it was definitely dried blood on the site), before announcing his latest deduction and pulling a body out of a swamp.
Clashing Agendas
The local leaders are determined proving that Hilda met her end by a bear, maybe to preserve the peace, or possibly to shield one of their own. The clergyman is intent on proving otherwise, and the proof so rapidly accumulates in his favour that again the show’s credibility and audience tolerance get strained. In its finest moments, the series is reminiscent of the adaptation some years back of the author’s The Essex Serpent, with its evocation of the competing allures and fears presented by rational thought and religion. In its low points, it’s more like a bear-themed police procedural. Still, it appears to offer the response to the earlier query: “Females, choose the animal.”
The series is on Disney+ now.
