A heated discussion lately spread widely on social media, following a user posed a query to women: would you rather find yourself stranded in the woods with a man or a bear? Like all the most engaging thought experiments, it exposed vastly opposing perspectives and experiences, highlighted chasms between the sexes, and was likely cause an existential crisis if you thought on it extensively. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable coda where men of a certain stripe took to the internet to inform females how stupid they were to select the bear and went on to describe the punishments they merited for that choice. This at least allowed the women who were uncertain over their choice to make it with renewed assurance.
Portraying the Scenario
The Bear-Cooking Tale skillfully brings to life this clever little setup. The six-part series is based from Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s 2018 book of the same name (translated two years later for English readers). It traces the struggles of a clergyman (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his family as they come to start a fresh religious post within Kengis, a remote settlement in Sweden’s north, in 1852. Within a community with few pleasures, not one of the inhabitants especially warm to his strict approach to alcohol and dancing, yet it is his protection of impoverished people – especially the native Sami population, from which comes the pastor’s foster child the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his conviction in social justice and equal rights that sets him on a collision course against the Kengis powers that be.
The Opposing Forces
Soon in cahoots opposing him are the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the fearsome mill owner the matron Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed early on dismissing a newly injured worker with minimal compensation while he is still babbling upon seeing his crushed hand, and anyone else who benefit from a community easily swayed with some containers of liquor provided by the creepy shopkeeper Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). However, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness pales once travelling artist Beronius appears on the scene (Simon J Berger, delivering a performance of rare unsettling intensity). If they are – like the pastor himself – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, they still serve as effective ones.
Plot Progression
With the seeds of conflict sown, the moment arrives to proceed with the storyline. The maid employed by the doctor, Hilda (the actress), duly goes missing in the forest. Indications of her flight and animal scratches on a tree get discovered but she is completely absent. Rumours and fears regarding a human-devouring beast roaming the woodland circulate, yet the clergyman has another theory that he and Jussi set out to verify.
A Strange Creation
To Cook a Bear is a slightly odd beast. It conjures a strong impression of the bleakness that lets distrust and bias and grim legends thrive from the native legend that bears can be controlled or inhabited by the souls of humans. It avoids idealising the tough existence led by the villagers, in which violence, be it from the wild or mankind, lurks constantly on the edges, poised to explode. But the characters seldom evolve beyond symbols – or maybe, while the conflicts amid fairness and vengeance, logic and faith, good and wickedness escalate, representative characters in a fable – which stops the entire production fully becoming immersive.
Tonal Inconsistencies
Additionally, there are the many stylistically clashing moments where the pastor’s ability to discover clues and determine the maid’s destiny becomes nearly laughable. He stands looking at broken milk pots and clumps of hair in hay barns as a fusion of Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (neither of whom had to taste a blend of blood droplets and the boss’s spit to agree that indeed, it was definitely dried blood at the crime scene), before announcing his latest deduction and extracting a corpse out of a swamp.
Clashing Agendas
The local leaders are determined proving that Hilda met her end by an animal, maybe to protect the peace, perhaps to protect one of their own. The clergyman is bent on proving otherwise, and the evidence so quickly stacks up supporting his view that again the drama’s plausibility and the viewer’s patience get strained. In its finest moments, 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. At its worst, it’s more like Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Nevertheless, it does seem to provide the response to that debated question: “Females, choose the animal.”
To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ currently.
