An intense debate recently went viral across online platforms, following a user posed a query for females: would you rather be lost in a forest with a man or with a bear? Like all the best hypothetical scenarios, it exposed vastly opposing perspectives and experiences, illuminated divides between the sexes, and was likely cause a deep personal dilemma for anyone pondering about it for too long. Additionally, there came the predictable coda where men of a certain stripe took to the internet to inform females how foolish they were to select the bear and proceeded to describe the punishments they merited for it. This at least allowed the women who had been hesitating over their choice to make it with renewed assurance.
Dramatising the Setup
The Bear-Cooking Tale skillfully brings to life this clever small premise. The six-part series is based on Scandinavian writer the novelist’s 2018 novel of the same name (rendered in 2020 for English readers). It follows the tribulations of a clergyman (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his family when they arrive to begin a fresh religious post in Kengis, an isolated village in Sweden’s north, in 1852. Within a community with few pleasures, none of the locals particularly appreciate his puritanical stance on drinking and dancing, but it is his defense of impoverished people – particularly the indigenous Sami, from among whom comes the pastor’s adopted son the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his belief in societal fairness and equality that places him in direct opposition with the Kengis powers that be.
The Antagonists
Quickly in cahoots against him are the lawman the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen early on dismissing a newly injured 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 with some containers of the whisky provided by the creepy shopkeeper Lindmark (the actor). However, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness pales once travelling artist Beronius appears in the story (the performer, providing an acting turn of exceptional discomfiting power). If they are – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond than caricatures, they are at least effective ones.
Plot Progression
With the seeds of tension planted, it is time to get down with the storyline. The servant employed by the doctor, Hilda (the actress), accordingly goes missing in the forest. Signs of her escape and animal scratches upon a trunk are found but she is completely absent. Rumours and anxieties regarding a human-devouring bear roaming the woods spread, but the pastor holds a different view that he and Jussi set out to prove.
An Odd Beast
To Cook a Bear is a somewhat peculiar show. It creates a fine sense of the bleakness that allows distrust and bias and grim legends thrive from the native legend that bears can be controlled or inhabited by the souls of humans. And it doesn’t idealising the tough existence experienced by the villagers, where brutality, whether that of nature or mankind, lurks constantly on the edges, waiting to erupt. But the characters rarely become beyond symbols – or maybe, while the conflicts amid fairness and vengeance, logic and faith, virtue and evil intensify, emblematic figures in a fable – preventing the whole thing fully coming to life.
Stylistic Shifts
And then, there are the many stylistically clashing moments where the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and discern the maid’s destiny becomes almost risible. He stands observing broken milk pots and strands of fur within storage sheds like a combined Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (none of whom were required to lick a blend of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to agree that indeed, it was clearly coagulated blood on the site), before announcing his newest conclusion and pulling a corpse from a bog.
Clashing Agendas
The local leaders are bent on proving that Hilda was killed by a bear, perhaps to preserve the peace, perhaps to protect a fellow elite. The pastor is intent on proving otherwise, and the proof so rapidly stacks up in his favour that once more the show’s credibility and the viewer’s patience are tested. At its best, the series is reminiscent of the TV version some years back of the author’s The Essex Serpent, through its portrayal of the opposing attractions and fears offered by rational thought and religion. In its low points, it resembles a bear-themed police procedural. Nevertheless, it appears to provide the response to that debated question: “Ladies, take the bear.”
The series streams on Disney+ now.
