An heated debate lately went viral across online platforms, after someone posed the question to women: which would you prefer find yourself stranded in a forest alongside a male or with a bear? Like all the most engaging hypothetical scenarios, it revealed vastly opposing worldviews and life encounters, illuminated chasms between the sexes, and could easily to induce an existential crisis for anyone pondering about it for too long. There was also the almost inevitable follow-up in which men of a certain stripe took to the internet to inform women how stupid they were to select the animal and went on to limn the punishments they deserved for that choice. This at minimum allowed the women who had been hesitating over their choice to make it with renewed assurance.
Portraying the Scenario
The Bear-Cooking Tale effectively brings to life this nifty small premise. The six-part drama is adapted from Scandinavian writer Mikael Niemi’s 2018 novel of the same name (translated in 2020 for English readers). It follows the struggles of a pastor (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his household as they come to start a new ministry in Kengis, an isolated settlement in Sweden’s north, in 1852. In a place lacking many joys, not one of the inhabitants especially appreciate his strict approach to drinking and dancing, yet it is his protection of impoverished people – especially the indigenous Sami, from among whom comes the pastor’s adopted son Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his belief in societal fairness and equal rights that places him in direct opposition against the Kengis local authorities.
The Antagonists
Soon collaborating against him include the lawman Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating mill owner the matron Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen initially dismissing a recently mangled worker with a month’s pay as he remains babbling upon seeing of his pulped hand, and all others who benefit from a populace who can be bought for a few bottles of liquor sold by the creepy shopkeeper Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). However, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes once itinerant painter the artist Beronius appears in the story (the performer, delivering a performance of rare unsettling intensity). If they are – like the pastor himself – only a little more being stereotypes, they still serve as potent archetypes.
Narrative Development
With the seeds of conflict sown, the moment arrives to proceed to narrative business. The maid from the doctor’s house, Hilda (the actress), duly goes missing in the forest. Signs of her escape and animal scratches on a tree get discovered but she is completely absent. Rumours and anxieties regarding a human-devouring beast prowling the woods spread, but the pastor has another theory that he and Jussi embark to verify.
A Strange Creation
To Cook a Bear is a somewhat odd beast. It creates a strong impression of the desolation that lets suspicion and bias and grim legends flourish from the native legend that animals can be controlled or inhabited by the spirits of humans. It avoids idealising the hardscrabble life led by the villagers, in which brutality, whether that of nature or people, lurks constantly on the edges, poised to explode. Yet the personas seldom evolve beyond symbols – or perhaps, while the conflicts amid fairness and vengeance, logic and religion, virtue and wickedness intensify, emblematic figures within a moral tale – which stops the whole thing fully becoming immersive.
Tonal Inconsistencies
Additionally, there are numerous tonally jarring instances where the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and determine 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 Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – with Jussi a rather hapless assistant figure (none of whom had to taste a mixture of blood spatter and the boss’s spit to confirm that, yes, it was clearly coagulated blood at the crime scene), before announcing his newest conclusion and extracting a body out of a swamp.
Clashing Agendas
The local leaders are bent on demonstrating that Hilda met her end by an animal, maybe to preserve the peace, or possibly to protect a fellow elite. The clergyman is bent on proving the opposite, and the proof so quickly accumulates supporting his view that again the show’s credibility and audience tolerance are tested. At its best, the series is reminiscent of the adaptation a few years ago of the author’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the competing allures and fears presented by science and religion. In its low points, it’s more like Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Nevertheless, it appears to offer the response to the earlier query: “Females, choose the animal.”
The series is on Disney+ now.
