A heated discussion lately spread widely across online platforms, after someone asked the question to women: would you rather find yourself stranded in a forest with a man or with a bear? Like all the most engaging thought experiments, it exposed vastly opposing worldviews and life encounters, highlighted chasms among genders, and was likely to induce an existential crisis for anyone pondering about it extensively. Additionally, there came the predictable follow-up in which some males took to the internet to tell women how foolish they were for choosing the bear and went on to describe the consequences they merited for it. This at least allowed the women 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 nifty small premise. The six-part series is adapted on Scandinavian writer Mikael Niemi’s 2018 book of the same name (rendered two years later for an English audience). It traces the tribulations of a pastor (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his household as they come to begin a fresh religious post in Kengis, a remote settlement in Sweden’s north, during the mid-19th century. Within a community with few pleasures, not one of the inhabitants particularly warm to his strict approach to alcohol and revelry, but it is his defense of impoverished people – especially the indigenous Sami, from among whom hails the pastor’s adopted son Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in societal fairness and equal rights that places him on a collision course with the Kengis local authorities.
The Antagonists
Quickly in cahoots opposing him are the sheriff the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating mill owner the matron Sjödahl (the actress), observed initially firing a newly injured laborer with minimal compensation while he is still babbling upon seeing his crushed hand, and all others who benefit from a populace who can be bought for a few bottles of liquor provided by the creepy shopkeeper the merchant Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes once travelling artist Beronius appears in the story (Simon J Berger, delivering an acting turn of rare unsettling intensity). If they are – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond than caricatures, they still serve as potent archetypes.
Plot Progression
Once the foundations of conflict sown, it is time to proceed to narrative business. The servant employed by the doctor, Hilda (the actress), duly goes missing from the woods. Signs of her escape and animal scratches upon a trunk are found yet she remains completely absent. Gossip and anxieties of a man/maid-eating bear roaming the woods circulate, but the pastor holds a different view that he and Jussi embark to verify.
An Odd Beast
To Cook a Bear is a slightly peculiar show. It conjures a strong impression of the bleakness that allows distrust and bias and grim legends flourish based on local folklore that bears can be controlled or possessed by the souls of humans. It avoids idealising the tough existence led by the villagers, where violence, whether that of nature or mankind, always looms on the edges, poised to explode. But the characters seldom evolve more than ciphers – or perhaps, as the struggles between justice and vengeance, rationality and religion, good and evil escalate, representative characters within a moral tale – which stops the entire production truly coming to life.
Stylistic Shifts
Additionally, exist numerous tonally jarring moments in which the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and determine the maid’s destiny turns almost risible. He positions himself observing shattered containers and strands of fur in hay barns as a fusion of Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (none of whom had to lick a blend of blood spatter and the boss’s spit to confirm that indeed, it was definitely coagulated blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his latest deduction and pulling a body from a bog.
Clashing Agendas
The local leaders are determined proving that the maid was killed by a bear, perhaps to preserve the peace, perhaps to protect a fellow elite. The pastor is bent on proving otherwise, and the evidence so rapidly accumulates supporting his view that once more the drama’s plausibility and audience tolerance are tested. At its best, the series evokes memories of the adaptation a few years ago of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the opposing attractions and fears offered by science and belief. In its low points, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it appears to offer the answer to that debated question: “Ladies, take the bear.”
The series streams on Disney+ now.
