A intense debate lately spread widely across online platforms, after a user asked the question to women: which would you prefer find yourself stranded in a forest alongside a male or with a bear? Similar to the best thought experiments, it exposed vastly opposing worldviews and experiences, highlighted chasms between the sexes, and could easily to induce a deep personal dilemma if you thought on it extensively. Additionally, there came the predictable follow-up where men of a certain stripe came online to tell females how foolish they had been to select the animal and went on to limn the punishments they deserved for that choice. This at minimum allowed those females who were uncertain over their choice to decide with renewed assurance.
Dramatising the Scenario
The Bear-Cooking Tale effectively dramatises this clever little setup. The six-part drama is based on Swedish author the novelist’s 2018 novel of the same name (rendered two years later for English readers). It follows the tribulations of a pastor (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his household when they arrive to begin a fresh religious post within Kengis, a remote settlement in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. Within a community lacking many joys, not one of the locals especially appreciate his strict stance on alcohol and revelry, but it is his protection of impoverished people – particularly the indigenous Sami, from which hails the preacher’s foster child the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his conviction in social justice and equality that places him in direct opposition against the Kengis powers that be.
The Antagonists
Quickly collaborating against him include the lawman the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating mill owner the matron Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen early on dismissing a recently mangled laborer with a month’s pay as he remains babbling at the sight his crushed hand, and anyone else who benefit from a community easily swayed for a few bottles of the whisky sold by the creepy shopkeeper Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, to be fair, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes when travelling artist Beronius arrives in the story (the performer, providing an acting turn of exceptional discomfiting power). While they remain – like the pastor himself – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, they still serve as effective ones.
Narrative Development
With the seeds of conflict planted, the moment arrives to get down to narrative business. The servant employed by the doctor, the character Hilda (the actress), accordingly goes missing in the forest. Indications of her escape and bear markings upon a trunk get discovered yet she remains completely absent. Rumours and fears of a man/maid-eating beast roaming the woods circulate, yet the clergyman has another theory that he and Jussi set out to verify.
An Odd Beast
To Cook a Bear is a slightly odd beast. It conjures a strong impression of the desolation that allows suspicion and prejudice and grim legends flourish from the native legend that animals can be controlled or inhabited by the spirits of humans. And it doesn’t romanticise the tough existence experienced by the residents, in which violence, be it from the wild or people, lurks constantly on the edges, waiting to erupt. But the characters seldom evolve more than ciphers – or perhaps, while the conflicts amid fairness and vengeance, logic and religion, good and wickedness escalate, representative characters within a moral tale – which stops the entire production fully becoming immersive.
Stylistic Shifts
Additionally, there are numerous tonally jarring instances where the pastor’s ability to discover clues and discern Hilda’s fate turns almost risible. He positions himself observing broken milk pots and clumps of hair within storage sheds like a combined Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – with Jussi a rather hapless Hastings-cum-Watson (neither of whom had to lick a blend of blood droplets and the boss’s spit to agree that indeed, it was clearly dried blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his latest deduction and pulling a body out of a swamp.
Clashing Agendas
The village elite are determined demonstrating that the maid was killed by a bear, maybe to preserve the peace, or possibly to shield one of their own. The pastor is bent on proving the opposite, and the proof so rapidly accumulates in his favour that once more the drama’s plausibility and the viewer’s patience get strained. At its best, the series evokes memories of the TV version some years back of Sarah Perry’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 appears to provide the response to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”
The series streams on Disney+ currently.
