An heated debate recently went viral on social media, following a user posed a query for females: which would you prefer be lost in a forest alongside a male or a bear? Similar to the best thought experiments, it exposed vastly opposing worldviews and experiences, highlighted chasms between the sexes, and could easily to induce a deep personal dilemma if you thought on it extensively. Additionally, there came the predictable coda in which some males came online to inform females how foolish they were for choosing the bear and went on to limn the consequences they deserved for that choice. This at minimum enabled the women who were uncertain about their decision to decide with renewed assurance.
Dramatising the Setup
The Bear-Cooking Tale skillfully brings to life this clever little setup. This six-episode series is based on Swedish author the novelist’s 2018 book with the identical title (translated in 2020 for English readers). It traces the struggles of a pastor (the lead actor) and his family as they come to begin a new ministry in Kengis, an isolated village in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. Within a community with few pleasures, none of the inhabitants particularly warm to his strict approach to alcohol and dancing, but it is his protection of impoverished people – especially the native Sami population, from which comes the preacher’s foster child the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his conviction in social justice and equality that places him in direct opposition with the Kengis local authorities.
The Antagonists
Quickly in cahoots opposing him are the lawman the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the fearsome mill owner the matron Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed initially dismissing a newly injured worker with a month’s pay as he remains gibbering upon seeing his crushed hand, and anyone else who profit from a community easily swayed for a few bottles of liquor sold by the creepy store owner Lindmark (the actor). However, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes when travelling artist the artist Beronius appears in the story (Simon J Berger, providing a performance of exceptional discomfiting power). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond than caricatures, they are at least effective ones.
Narrative Development
Once the foundations of tension sown, the moment arrives to proceed to narrative business. The servant employed by the doctor, Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), accordingly vanishes in the forest. Indications of her flight and bear markings upon a trunk get discovered yet she remains completely absent. Gossip and fears regarding a human-devouring bear roaming the woods spread, yet the clergyman has another theory that he and Jussi set out to verify.
An Odd Beast
To Cook a Bear is a somewhat peculiar show. It conjures a fine sense of the desolation that allows distrust and bias and dark myths flourish from the native legend that bears might be dominated or possessed by the souls of men. It avoids idealising the tough existence led by the residents, where brutality, whether that of nature or people, lurks constantly at the periphery, waiting to erupt. But the characters rarely become more than ciphers – or perhaps, as the struggles amid fairness and vengeance, logic and religion, good and wickedness intensify, representative characters within a moral tale – which stops the whole thing fully coming to life.
Stylistic Shifts
Additionally, there are numerous tonally jarring instances in which the pastor’s ability to discover clues and discern Hilda’s fate turns almost risible. He stands observing shattered containers and clumps of hair in hay barns as a fusion of the Belgian detective the English sleuth – alongside Jussi a rather hapless Hastings-cum-Watson (neither of whom were required to taste a mixture of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to confirm that indeed, it was definitely coagulated blood on the site), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and pulling a corpse out of a swamp.
Clashing Agendas
The local leaders are bent on proving that the maid met her end by an animal, perhaps to protect the calm, or possibly to protect one of their own. The pastor is intent on establishing the opposite, and the proof so rapidly stacks up in his favour that once more the show’s credibility and audience tolerance are tested. In its finest moments, the series evokes memories of the adaptation a few years ago of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the opposing attractions and fears offered by rational thought and religion. At its worst, it resembles a bear-themed police procedural. Still, it appears to provide the response to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”
The series is on Disney+ now.
