An heated discussion recently went viral on social media, after someone posed the question for females: would you rather be lost in a forest alongside a male or a bear? Similar to the best hypothetical scenarios, it exposed vastly opposing worldviews and experiences, highlighted divides among genders, and could easily to induce an existential crisis for anyone pondering on it extensively. Additionally, there came the predictable follow-up where some males took to the internet to inform females how stupid they were for choosing the bear and proceeded to describe the punishments they deserved for that choice. This at least enabled the women who were uncertain about their decision to make it with a new confidence.
Dramatising the Setup
The Bear-Cooking Tale effectively dramatises this clever small premise. This six-episode drama is based on Scandinavian writer the novelist’s 2018 novel with the identical title (rendered two years later for an English audience). It follows the tribulations of a pastor (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his household when they arrive to start a fresh religious post within Kengis, an isolated settlement in Sweden’s north, in 1852. In a place with few pleasures, none of the inhabitants especially appreciate his strict stance on alcohol and dancing, yet it is his protection of impoverished people – particularly the native Sami population, from among whom comes the preacher’s adopted son Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his belief in social justice and equality that sets him in direct opposition with the Kengis powers that be.
The Opposing Forces
Soon in cahoots against him are the lawman the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the fearsome factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen initially firing a newly injured worker with minimal compensation as he remains babbling upon seeing of his pulped hand, and anyone else who profit from a community easily swayed for a few bottles of liquor provided by the unsettling shopkeeper Lindmark (the actor). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness pales once travelling artist Beronius arrives in the story (the performer, providing an acting turn of rare unsettling intensity). If they are – similar to the clergyman – only a little more than caricatures, they are at least potent archetypes.
Narrative Development
Once the foundations of conflict sown, the moment arrives to get down to narrative business. The servant from the doctor’s house, the character Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), accordingly vanishes in the forest. Indications of her escape and animal scratches on a tree are found yet she remains completely absent. Rumours and fears of a man/maid-eating bear prowling the woodland circulate, yet the clergyman holds a different view which he and his ward embark to prove.
A Strange Creation
To Cook a Bear is a somewhat peculiar show. It conjures a strong impression of the bleakness that allows suspicion and bias and dark myths flourish from the native legend that bears might be dominated or possessed by the souls of men. It avoids romanticise the hardscrabble life experienced by the villagers, where brutality, be it from the wild or people, always looms on the edges, poised to explode. But the characters rarely become more than ciphers – or maybe, as the struggles between justice and vengeance, logic and religion, good and wickedness intensify, emblematic figures in a fable – preventing the entire production truly becoming immersive.
Stylistic Shifts
And then, there are the many stylistically clashing instances where the clergyman’s skill to discover clues and discern the maid’s destiny turns almost risible. He positions himself observing broken milk pots and clumps of hair within storage sheds as a fusion of the Belgian detective and Sherlock Holmes – with Jussi a rather hapless assistant figure (neither of whom were required to lick a mixture of blood spatter and the boss’s spit to agree that indeed, it was definitely dried blood on the site), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and extracting a body from a bog.
Opposing Goals
The village elite are determined proving that the maid met her end by an animal, maybe to preserve the calm, or possibly to shield a fellow elite. The clergyman is bent on establishing the opposite, and the proof so quickly accumulates in his favour that again the show’s credibility and the viewer’s patience get strained. In its finest moments, 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 science and religion. At its worst, it’s more like a bear-themed police procedural. Nevertheless, it appears to provide the answer to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”
The series streams on Disney+ now.
