An intense discussion lately spread widely on social media, following someone posed a query for females: would you rather be lost in the woods with a man or a bear? Like all the best thought experiments, it exposed wildly different worldviews and experiences, highlighted chasms between the sexes, and was likely cause a deep personal dilemma if you thought about it for too long. Additionally, there came the predictable follow-up where some males came online to inform women how foolish they were for choosing the animal and went on to describe the consequences they merited for it. This at least allowed the women who had been hesitating 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 from Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s 2018 book with the identical title (rendered in 2020 for English readers). It traces the struggles of a clergyman (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his household as they come to start a new ministry in Kengis, a remote village in Sweden’s north, in 1852. Within a community lacking many joys, none of the inhabitants especially warm to his puritanical stance on drinking and revelry, but it is his protection of impoverished people – particularly the native Sami population, from which hails the preacher’s adopted son the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his conviction in societal fairness and equality that sets him in direct opposition against the Kengis powers that be.
The Antagonists
Soon collaborating opposing him are the lawman the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the fearsome mill owner the matron Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed initially firing a recently mangled laborer with minimal compensation as he remains gibbering upon seeing his crushed hand, and anyone else who profit from a populace who can be bought with some containers of the whisky provided by the unsettling shopkeeper the merchant Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes when itinerant painter the artist Beronius arrives on the scene (the performer, providing a performance of rare discomfiting power). If they are – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, they still serve as potent archetypes.
Plot Progression
Once the foundations of tension sown, it is time to proceed with the storyline. The maid from the doctor’s house, the character Hilda (the actress), duly goes missing in the forest. Signs of her escape and animal scratches upon a trunk get discovered yet she remains completely absent. Rumours and fears regarding a human-devouring beast prowling the woodland spread, yet the clergyman has another theory which he and his ward embark to verify.
An Odd Beast
To Cook a Bear is a slightly peculiar show. It conjures a strong impression of the desolation that allows distrust and prejudice and dark myths thrive based on local folklore that bears might be dominated or possessed by the spirits of men. And it doesn’t romanticise the tough existence led by the villagers, where brutality, be it from the wild or people, lurks constantly on the edges, waiting to erupt. Yet the personas rarely become more than ciphers – or perhaps, while the conflicts amid fairness and vengeance, logic and faith, virtue and wickedness intensify, emblematic figures in a fable – preventing the whole thing fully becoming immersive.
Stylistic Shifts
And then, exist numerous tonally jarring instances in which the clergyman’s skill to discover clues and determine Hilda’s fate turns almost risible. He stands observing shattered containers and strands of fur in hay barns as a fusion of Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – with Jussi a rather hapless assistant figure (neither of whom had to taste a mixture of blood droplets and saliva from his superior to agree that, yes, it was clearly coagulated blood on the site), prior to declaring his latest deduction and extracting a corpse out of a swamp.
Opposing Goals
The local leaders are bent on proving that the maid met her end by an animal, perhaps to protect the calm, perhaps to shield a fellow elite. The pastor is bent on establishing otherwise, and the proof so rapidly stacks up in his favour that once more the show’s credibility and audience tolerance get strained. At its best, the series is reminiscent of the TV version some years back of the author’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the competing allures and fears offered by rational thought and religion. In its low points, it resembles a bear-themed police procedural. Nevertheless, it does seem to provide the answer to that debated question: “Ladies, take the bear.”
To Cook a Bear is on Disney+ now.
