A intense debate lately spread widely across online platforms, following a user asked the question to women: would you rather be lost in the woods alongside a male or a bear? Like all the best thought experiments, it exposed wildly different perspectives and life encounters, highlighted divides between the sexes, and was likely to induce an existential crisis if you thought on it for too long. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable coda in which some males took to the internet to inform females how foolish they were for choosing the animal and proceeded to limn the consequences they deserved for it. This at least enabled those females who had been hesitating over their choice to decide with a new confidence.
Dramatising the Setup
The Bear-Cooking Tale effectively brings to life this clever little setup. This six-episode series is adapted from Scandinavian writer Mikael Niemi’s 2018 book of the same name (rendered two years later for an English audience). It traces the struggles of a pastor (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his family as they come to start a fresh religious post in Kengis, a remote village in northern Sweden, in 1852. In a place lacking many joys, none of the inhabitants particularly appreciate his strict stance on drinking and dancing, but it is his defense of the poor – especially the indigenous Sami, from among whom comes the preacher’s foster child the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his belief in societal fairness and equality that sets him in direct opposition against the Kengis local authorities.
The Opposing Forces
Soon collaborating opposing him include the lawman Brahe (the performer), the intimidating mill owner the matron Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed initially firing a newly injured laborer with a month’s pay while he is still babbling at the sight his crushed hand, and anyone else who profit from a populace who can be bought for a few bottles of liquor provided by the unsettling store owner the merchant Lindmark (the actor). However, to be fair, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes when itinerant painter the artist Beronius appears in the story (Simon J Berger, providing an acting turn of exceptional unsettling intensity). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond than caricatures, they are at least effective ones.
Narrative Development
With the seeds of conflict planted, it is time to proceed with the storyline. The servant employed by the doctor, the character Hilda (the actress), duly vanishes in the forest. Signs of her flight and bear markings on a tree are found yet she remains nowhere to be seen. Rumours and fears regarding a human-devouring bear roaming the woodland circulate, but the pastor has another theory which he and his ward embark to verify.
A Strange Creation
To Cook a Bear is a slightly odd beast. It conjures a strong impression of the desolation that lets suspicion and prejudice and grim legends thrive based on local folklore that bears can be controlled or inhabited by the spirits of men. And it doesn’t romanticise the tough existence led by the residents, in which violence, be it from nature or mankind, lurks constantly at the periphery, poised to explode. Yet the personas seldom evolve more than ciphers – or maybe, while the conflicts amid fairness and vengeance, rationality and religion, good and wickedness escalate, emblematic figures in a fable – which stops the entire production fully coming to life.
Stylistic Shifts
And then, exist numerous stylistically clashing moments where the clergyman’s skill to discover clues and discern the maid’s destiny becomes nearly laughable. He stands observing shattered containers and clumps of hair within storage sheds like a combined Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (none of whom had to taste a blend of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to agree that indeed, it was clearly coagulated blood at the crime scene), before announcing his latest deduction and pulling a corpse from a bog.
Clashing Agendas
The village elite are determined demonstrating that Hilda was killed by an animal, perhaps to preserve the peace, perhaps to protect a fellow elite. The clergyman is bent on proving otherwise, and the proof so quickly accumulates in his favour that again the show’s credibility and the viewer’s patience are tested. At its best, the series evokes memories of the TV version a few years ago of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the opposing attractions and terrors offered by science and belief. At its worst, it’s more like Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it does seem to provide the response to that debated question: “Ladies, take the bear.”
To Cook a Bear is on Disney+ currently.
