An intense discussion recently went viral on social media, following someone posed the question to women: would you rather be lost in a forest with a man or with a bear? Similar to the most engaging thought experiments, it exposed vastly opposing perspectives and experiences, highlighted divides between the sexes, and could easily to induce a deep personal dilemma for anyone pondering about it extensively. There was also the predictable follow-up where some males came online to tell women how stupid they had been to select the bear and went on to describe the punishments they deserved for that choice. This at least allowed those females who were uncertain over their choice to make it with a new confidence.
Dramatising the Setup
The Bear-Cooking Tale effectively brings to life this clever small premise. This six-episode drama is based from Scandinavian writer the novelist’s 2018 book of the same name (translated two years later for an English audience). It follows the tribulations of a clergyman (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his family when they arrive to start a new ministry in Kengis, a remote settlement in northern Sweden, in 1852. In a place lacking many joys, not one of the inhabitants especially appreciate his strict stance on alcohol and dancing, but it is his defense of impoverished people – especially the indigenous Sami, from among whom comes the preacher’s foster child Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his conviction in social justice and equality that places him in direct opposition against the Kengis local authorities.
The Antagonists
Soon collaborating opposing him include the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating mill owner Madam Sjödahl (the actress), observed early on dismissing a recently mangled laborer with minimal compensation while he is still gibbering upon seeing his crushed hand, and all others who profit from a populace easily swayed for a few bottles of the whisky provided by the creepy store owner the merchant Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). However, to be fair, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes once itinerant painter Beronius arrives on the scene (the performer, delivering a performance of exceptional unsettling intensity). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – only a little more being stereotypes, they are at least effective ones.
Narrative Development
Once the foundations of conflict planted, the moment arrives to get down with the storyline. The servant from the doctor’s house, the character Hilda (the actress), duly goes missing in the forest. Indications of her escape and bear markings on a tree get discovered yet she remains nowhere to be seen. Rumours and fears regarding a human-devouring bear roaming the woodland spread, yet the clergyman has another theory that he and Jussi set out to prove.
An Odd Beast
To Cook a Bear is a somewhat odd beast. It conjures a strong impression of the desolation that lets distrust and prejudice 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 experienced by the villagers, in which brutality, whether that of the wild or mankind, always looms on the edges, poised to explode. Yet the personas rarely become beyond symbols – or perhaps, as the struggles between justice and revenge, logic and faith, virtue and wickedness escalate, emblematic figures within a moral tale – which stops the whole thing fully 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 becomes nearly laughable. He positions himself looking at broken milk pots and clumps of hair in hay barns as a fusion of Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (neither of whom were required 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 latest deduction and extracting a corpse from a bog.
Opposing Goals
The village elite are determined demonstrating that the maid met her end by a bear, perhaps to protect the calm, perhaps to shield one of their own. The pastor is bent on proving otherwise, and the evidence so quickly stacks up supporting his view that again the drama’s plausibility and the viewer’s patience get strained. At its best, the series is reminiscent of the adaptation a few years ago of the author’s The Essex Serpent, with its evocation of the competing allures and terrors presented by rational thought and belief. At its worst, it’s more like a bear-themed police procedural. Still, it appears to offer the response to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”
To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ now.
