An heated discussion lately went viral on social media, following someone asked a query to women: would you rather be lost in the woods alongside a male or a bear? Similar to the best hypothetical scenarios, it revealed vastly opposing perspectives and experiences, highlighted chasms among genders, and was likely cause a deep personal dilemma if you thought on it extensively. There was also the almost inevitable follow-up in which some males came online to inform women how foolish they had been to select the animal and proceeded to describe the consequences they merited for it. This at minimum enabled the women who were uncertain over their choice to make it with a new confidence.
Dramatising the Scenario
The Bear-Cooking Tale effectively brings to life this nifty small premise. This six-episode series is adapted on Swedish author the novelist’s 2018 book of the same name (rendered two years later for English readers). It follows the tribulations of a pastor (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his household when they arrive to begin a new ministry in Kengis, an isolated settlement in Sweden’s north, during the mid-19th century. Within a community lacking many joys, none of the locals especially appreciate his puritanical approach to drinking and dancing, but it is his protection of the poor – particularly the indigenous Sami, from which hails the pastor’s foster child the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his belief in social justice and equality that sets him on a collision course against the Kengis powers that be.
The Opposing Forces
Soon in cahoots against him include the lawman the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the intimidating factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (the actress), seen early on dismissing a recently mangled laborer with minimal compensation while he is still gibbering at the sight his crushed hand, and all others who benefit from a populace who can be bought with some containers of the whisky provided by the unsettling shopkeeper Lindmark (the actor). However, to be fair, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes once itinerant painter the artist Beronius appears on the scene (Simon J Berger, providing a performance of rare discomfiting power). While they remain – like the pastor himself – only a little more than caricatures, they are at least potent archetypes.
Plot Progression
With the seeds of tension planted, the moment arrives to proceed with the storyline. The maid employed by the doctor, the character Hilda (the actress), duly vanishes in the forest. Indications of her escape and bear markings upon a trunk are found yet she remains completely absent. Rumours and fears regarding a human-devouring beast prowling the woods circulate, but the pastor has another theory which he and his ward embark to verify.
A Strange Creation
To Cook a Bear is a somewhat odd beast. It conjures a strong impression of the desolation that lets suspicion and bias and dark myths flourish based on local folklore that bears can be controlled or inhabited by the souls of humans. It avoids romanticise the hardscrabble life experienced by the residents, in which violence, whether that of nature or people, lurks constantly at the periphery, poised to explode. Yet the personas seldom evolve beyond symbols – or perhaps, as the struggles between justice and revenge, logic and religion, virtue and evil intensify, representative characters within a moral tale – preventing the whole thing fully becoming immersive.
Tonal Inconsistencies
And then, there are numerous tonally jarring instances where the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and discern the maid’s destiny becomes nearly laughable. He positions himself observing shattered containers and clumps of hair in hay barns like a combined Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (neither of whom were required to lick a blend of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to agree that indeed, it was clearly dried blood on the site), prior to declaring his latest deduction and extracting a body out of a swamp.
Opposing Goals
The village elite are bent on proving that Hilda was killed by a bear, perhaps to protect the calm, or possibly to shield one of their own. The pastor is bent on establishing otherwise, and the evidence so quickly accumulates supporting his view that again the show’s credibility and audience tolerance are tested. At its best, the series evokes memories of the TV version a few years ago of the author’s The Essex Serpent, through its portrayal of the competing allures and terrors presented by rational thought and belief. In its low points, it resembles a bear-themed police procedural. Nevertheless, it does seem to provide the answer to the earlier query: “Females, choose the animal.”
The series is on Disney+ currently.
