An intense discussion lately went viral across online platforms, after someone asked the question to women: which would you prefer find yourself stranded in a forest alongside a male or a bear? Like all the best hypothetical scenarios, it revealed wildly different perspectives and life encounters, highlighted chasms between the sexes, and could easily cause an existential crisis if you thought on it extensively. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable follow-up in which men of a certain stripe took to the internet to tell women how stupid they were for choosing the animal and proceeded to describe the consequences they merited for it. This at least enabled those females who were uncertain over their choice to make it with renewed assurance.
Portraying the Setup
The Bear-Cooking Tale skillfully brings to life this nifty little setup. This six-episode drama is based on Scandinavian writer the novelist’s 2018 novel of the same name (rendered two years later for English readers). It traces the tribulations of a pastor (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his household as they come to start a fresh religious post in Kengis, a remote village in Sweden’s north, in 1852. In a place with few pleasures, not one of the inhabitants particularly warm to his strict approach to alcohol and dancing, yet it is his protection of impoverished people – especially the native Sami population, from among whom hails the pastor’s foster child the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his conviction in social justice and equality that sets him on a collision course with the Kengis powers that be.
The Opposing Forces
Quickly collaborating against him are the sheriff the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the fearsome factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen early on firing a recently mangled worker with a month’s pay as he remains babbling at the sight of his pulped hand, and anyone else who profit from a populace who can be bought for a few bottles of the whisky provided by the creepy store owner Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness pales once itinerant painter Beronius arrives in the story (Simon J Berger, providing a performance of rare unsettling intensity). While they remain – like the pastor himself – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, they still serve as effective ones.
Plot Progression
With the seeds of conflict planted, it is time to proceed to narrative business. The servant from the doctor’s house, the character Hilda (the actress), accordingly goes missing in the forest. Signs of her escape and animal scratches on a tree get discovered but she is nowhere to be seen. Gossip and fears of a man/maid-eating bear prowling the woods circulate, yet the clergyman has another theory that he and Jussi set out to prove.
An Odd Beast
To Cook a Bear is a slightly peculiar show. It creates a strong impression of the desolation that lets suspicion and prejudice and dark myths flourish based on local folklore that animals might be dominated or inhabited by the spirits of men. And it doesn’t romanticise the tough existence experienced by the residents, in which brutality, whether that of nature or people, lurks constantly on the edges, waiting to erupt. Yet the personas rarely become more than ciphers – or perhaps, as the struggles between justice and vengeance, rationality and faith, virtue and wickedness intensify, emblematic figures within a moral tale – preventing the entire production truly becoming immersive.
Stylistic Shifts
Additionally, there are the many tonally jarring moments in which the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and determine Hilda’s fate turns almost risible. He positions himself observing shattered containers and clumps of hair within storage sheds as a fusion of Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (neither of whom were required to taste a mixture of blood droplets and saliva from his superior to confirm that indeed, it was definitely dried blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and pulling a body from a bog.
Opposing Goals
The village elite are determined proving that Hilda met her end by an animal, maybe to protect the peace, perhaps to protect a fellow elite. The clergyman is intent on establishing the opposite, and the evidence so rapidly 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 some years back of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the opposing attractions and terrors offered by rational thought and religion. In its low points, it’s more like Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Nevertheless, it appears to offer the response to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”
To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ currently.
