An heated discussion recently spread widely across online platforms, following someone asked the question for females: would you rather find yourself stranded in the woods alongside a male or with a bear? Similar to the most engaging thought experiments, it revealed vastly opposing worldviews and life encounters, highlighted chasms among genders, and could easily to induce a deep personal dilemma for anyone pondering on it for too long. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable follow-up in which men of a certain stripe took to the internet to tell females how foolish they were for choosing the animal and went on to describe the punishments they deserved for that choice. This at minimum allowed those females who were uncertain about their decision to make it with a new confidence.
Portraying the Setup
The Bear-Cooking Tale skillfully brings to life this clever small premise. This six-episode series is adapted on Scandinavian writer the novelist’s 2018 novel of the same name (translated in 2020 for an English audience). It follows the struggles of a clergyman (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his family when they arrive to start a new ministry within Kengis, a remote settlement in northern Sweden, in 1852. In a place with few pleasures, not one of the locals particularly appreciate his puritanical stance on alcohol and dancing, yet it is his protection of the poor – particularly the indigenous Sami, from among whom hails the preacher’s foster child Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in societal fairness and equal rights that sets him in direct opposition with the Kengis local authorities.
The Antagonists
Quickly collaborating opposing him are the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the fearsome factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen initially firing a newly injured worker with minimal compensation as he remains gibbering at the sight of his pulped hand, and all others who benefit from a populace easily swayed with some containers of liquor provided by the creepy shopkeeper Lindmark (the actor). However, to be fair, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes when itinerant painter the artist Beronius appears on the scene (the performer, providing an acting turn of exceptional discomfiting power). While they remain – like the pastor himself – just slightly beyond than caricatures, they still serve as potent archetypes.
Narrative Development
With the seeds of conflict planted, it is time to proceed with the storyline. The maid from the doctor’s house, Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), duly vanishes in the forest. Signs of her flight and bear markings on a tree are found but she is nowhere to be seen. Gossip and fears regarding a human-devouring bear roaming the woods spread, yet the clergyman holds a different view which he and his ward set out to verify.
An Odd Beast
To Cook a Bear is a slightly odd beast. It creates a fine sense of the bleakness that allows suspicion and bias and dark myths flourish based on local folklore that bears might be dominated or inhabited by the souls of men. It avoids idealising the hardscrabble life led by the villagers, where brutality, whether that of the wild or mankind, lurks constantly on the edges, poised to explode. Yet the personas seldom evolve beyond symbols – or maybe, while the conflicts amid fairness and vengeance, logic and faith, virtue and evil escalate, emblematic figures in a fable – which stops the whole thing fully coming to life.
Tonal Inconsistencies
And then, exist numerous tonally jarring moments where the clergyman’s skill to discover clues and discern Hilda’s fate turns almost risible. He stands looking at shattered containers and strands of fur within storage sheds as a fusion of the Belgian detective the English sleuth – with Jussi a rather hapless Hastings-cum-Watson (none of whom had to lick a mixture of blood droplets and the boss’s spit to confirm that indeed, it was definitely dried blood on the site), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and pulling a body from a bog.
Opposing Goals
The village elite are determined demonstrating that the maid was killed by an animal, perhaps to preserve the calm, or possibly to shield a fellow elite. 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 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 opposing allures and fears offered by rational thought and religion. At its worst, it’s more like Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it does seem to provide the response to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”
To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ now.
