An heated debate recently went viral across online platforms, following someone asked a query to women: would you rather find yourself stranded in a forest alongside a male or with a bear? Similar to the best hypothetical scenarios, it revealed vastly opposing worldviews and life encounters, highlighted divides among genders, and was likely to induce an existential crisis for anyone pondering about it extensively. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable coda where some males took to the internet to tell women how stupid they were to select the bear and proceeded to limn the punishments they deserved for that choice. This at least allowed those females who had been hesitating about their decision to decide with a new confidence.
Portraying the Setup
The Bear-Cooking Tale skillfully brings to life this clever little setup. This six-episode series is adapted on Scandinavian writer Mikael Niemi’s 2018 novel with the identical title (translated two years later for English readers). It follows the tribulations of a pastor (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his family as they come to begin a new ministry within Kengis, an isolated village in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. Within a community with few pleasures, not one of the locals particularly warm to his puritanical approach to drinking and dancing, yet it is his defense of impoverished people – particularly the indigenous Sami, from among whom hails the preacher’s adopted son Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his belief in societal fairness and equality that places him in direct opposition against the Kengis powers that be.
The Opposing Forces
Quickly in cahoots opposing him include the sheriff the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the fearsome factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (the actress), seen early on firing a recently mangled laborer with a month’s pay while he is still babbling upon seeing of his pulped hand, and all others who profit from a community who can be bought for a few bottles of the whisky provided by the creepy shopkeeper the merchant Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). However, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness pales once itinerant painter the artist Beronius arrives in the story (Simon J Berger, delivering a performance of exceptional unsettling intensity). If they are – like the pastor himself – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, they are at least effective ones.
Plot Progression
Once the foundations of conflict sown, it is time to get down with the storyline. The maid employed by the doctor, Hilda (the actress), accordingly goes missing from the woods. Indications of her escape and bear markings upon a trunk get discovered but she is nowhere to be seen. Gossip and anxieties of a man/maid-eating beast prowling the woodland circulate, but the pastor has another theory which he and his ward set out to prove.
A Strange Creation
To Cook a Bear is a somewhat odd beast. It conjures a strong impression of the desolation that allows distrust and prejudice and grim legends thrive from the native legend that animals can be controlled or possessed by the spirits of men. It avoids romanticise the tough existence experienced by the villagers, where violence, be it from nature or mankind, lurks constantly at the periphery, poised to explode. But the characters seldom evolve beyond symbols – or perhaps, as the struggles amid fairness and revenge, logic and religion, good and evil escalate, emblematic figures in a fable – preventing the entire production truly becoming immersive.
Stylistic Shifts
And then, exist the many stylistically clashing instances where the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and determine the maid’s destiny turns nearly laughable. He stands observing broken milk pots and strands of fur within storage sheds like a combined the Belgian detective the English sleuth – 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 confirm that, yes, it was definitely dried blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and pulling a corpse out of a swamp.
Opposing Goals
The local leaders are determined proving that the maid was killed by a bear, maybe to protect the calm, perhaps to shield a fellow elite. The clergyman is intent on proving otherwise, and the proof so quickly stacks up supporting his view that once more the show’s credibility and the viewer’s patience are tested. At its best, the series evokes memories of the adaptation a few years ago of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the opposing allures and fears presented by science and belief. At its worst, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Nevertheless, it does seem to provide the answer to that debated question: “Females, choose the animal.”
To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ currently.
