An intense debate lately went viral across online platforms, after someone asked a query for females: would you rather find yourself stranded in the woods alongside a male or a bear? Like all the best thought experiments, it exposed wildly different worldviews and experiences, highlighted chasms between the sexes, and could easily cause a deep personal dilemma for anyone pondering about it extensively. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable coda in which some males came online to inform women how foolish they had been to select the bear and proceeded to limn the consequences they merited for it. This at minimum enabled the women who were uncertain over their choice to decide with renewed assurance.
Portraying the Scenario
The Bear-Cooking Tale effectively brings to life this clever little setup. The six-part drama is based from Scandinavian writer Mikael Niemi’s 2018 novel with the identical title (rendered two years later for English readers). It follows the struggles of a pastor (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his household as they come to begin a new ministry in Kengis, an isolated village in Sweden’s north, during the mid-19th century. Within a community with few pleasures, not one of the locals particularly warm to his strict approach to alcohol and revelry, but it is his protection of impoverished people – particularly the indigenous Sami, from which comes the preacher’s foster child the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his belief in social justice and equality that sets him in direct opposition with the Kengis local authorities.
The Antagonists
Soon collaborating against him are the lawman Brahe (the performer), the intimidating factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen initially dismissing a newly injured laborer with minimal compensation as he remains babbling at the sight of his pulped hand, and anyone else who profit from a populace easily swayed with some containers of the whisky sold by the unsettling store owner Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, to be fair, Lindmark’s creepiness pales once travelling artist Beronius arrives in the story (Simon J Berger, providing an acting turn of exceptional discomfiting power). While they remain – like the pastor himself – only a little more than caricatures, they are at least effective ones.
Narrative Development
Once the foundations of tension sown, it is time to proceed to narrative business. The maid from the doctor’s house, the character Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), accordingly goes missing from the woods. Signs of her escape and bear markings upon a trunk get discovered yet she remains completely absent. Rumours and anxieties regarding a human-devouring bear prowling the woods spread, yet the clergyman holds a different view which he and his ward set out to prove.
A Strange Creation
To Cook a Bear is a somewhat odd beast. It creates a strong impression of the bleakness that allows distrust and bias and grim legends thrive based on local folklore that animals might be dominated or possessed by the souls of humans. It avoids romanticise the tough existence experienced by the villagers, in which violence, be it from nature or people, always looms on the edges, waiting to erupt. Yet the personas seldom evolve beyond symbols – or perhaps, while the conflicts amid fairness and revenge, logic and religion, good and wickedness intensify, representative characters in a fable – which stops the entire production fully coming to life.
Stylistic Shifts
Additionally, exist numerous stylistically clashing moments where the pastor’s ability to discover clues and determine Hilda’s fate turns almost risible. He stands observing shattered containers and strands of fur within storage sheds as a fusion of Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – with Jussi a rather hapless assistant figure (none of whom were required to lick a blend of blood droplets and saliva from his superior to agree that indeed, it was clearly dried blood on the site), prior to declaring his latest deduction and pulling a corpse out of a swamp.
Clashing Agendas
The village elite are bent on proving that Hilda was killed by a bear, maybe to protect the peace, or possibly to protect a fellow elite. The clergyman is bent on proving otherwise, and the evidence so rapidly accumulates supporting his view that once more the drama’s plausibility and the viewer’s patience are tested. At its best, the series is reminiscent of the adaptation a few years ago of Sarah Perry’s The Essex Serpent, through its portrayal of the competing attractions and fears offered by rational thought and belief. In its low points, it resembles a bear-themed police procedural. Nevertheless, it does seem to offer the response to the earlier query: “Females, choose the animal.”
The series is on Disney+ currently.
