A intense debate lately went viral across online platforms, after a user posed a query to women: which would you prefer be lost in the woods alongside a male or with a bear? Similar to the most engaging thought experiments, it revealed vastly opposing perspectives and experiences, illuminated chasms between the sexes, and was likely to induce a deep personal dilemma if you thought about it for too long. Additionally, there came the predictable follow-up in which men of a certain stripe took to the internet to inform females how stupid they had been for choosing the animal and proceeded to limn the punishments they merited for that choice. This at minimum enabled the women who were uncertain over their choice to decide with a new confidence.
Dramatising the Scenario
The Bear-Cooking Tale skillfully brings to life this nifty small premise. The six-part series is adapted on Swedish author the novelist’s 2018 novel with the identical title (rendered in 2020 for English readers). It traces the tribulations of a pastor (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his household when they arrive to begin a fresh religious post in Kengis, an isolated village in northern Sweden, in 1852. Within a community with few pleasures, none of the locals especially appreciate his strict approach to drinking and revelry, yet it is his defense of the poor – especially the native Sami population, from among whom hails the preacher’s foster child the youth 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 Antagonists
Quickly collaborating against him are the lawman Brahe (the performer), the fearsome mill owner the matron Sjödahl (the actress), observed early on firing a recently mangled laborer with a month’s pay while he is still gibbering at the sight of his pulped hand, and all others who benefit from a community who can be bought for a few bottles of the whisky provided by the unsettling shopkeeper Lindmark (the actor). Although, to be fair, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes when travelling artist the artist Beronius appears in the story (Simon J Berger, providing a performance of rare unsettling intensity). If they are – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, they are at least potent archetypes.
Narrative Development
With the seeds of tension sown, the moment arrives to get down with the storyline. The servant from the doctor’s house, Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), accordingly goes missing from the woods. Indications of her flight and bear markings upon a trunk get discovered yet she remains nowhere to be seen. Gossip and anxieties regarding a human-devouring bear roaming the woods circulate, but the pastor has another theory which he and his ward embark to prove.
An Odd Beast
To Cook a Bear is a somewhat odd beast. It conjures a strong impression of the bleakness that allows suspicion and prejudice and dark myths flourish based on local folklore that animals can be controlled or possessed by the spirits of humans. And it doesn’t idealising the hardscrabble life experienced by the residents, in which violence, whether that of nature or mankind, always looms on the edges, poised to explode. Yet the personas seldom evolve beyond symbols – or perhaps, while the conflicts between justice and revenge, rationality and faith, good and evil escalate, emblematic figures in a fable – preventing the whole thing truly becoming immersive.
Tonal Inconsistencies
Additionally, exist the many tonally jarring moments where the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and discern the maid’s destiny becomes almost risible. He positions himself looking at broken milk pots and strands of fur within storage sheds like a combined the Belgian detective the English sleuth – alongside Jussi a rather hapless Hastings-cum-Watson (none of whom were required to lick a blend of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to confirm 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 an animal, maybe to preserve the calm, perhaps to protect a fellow elite. The pastor is bent on proving otherwise, and the proof so quickly accumulates in his favour that once more 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 the author’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the competing allures and terrors offered by rational thought and belief. In its low points, it’s more like a bear-themed police procedural. Nevertheless, it appears to provide the answer to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”
To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ now.
