An intense debate recently went viral on social media, following a user asked the question for females: would you rather be lost in a forest alongside a male or with a bear? Like all the best thought experiments, it revealed wildly different worldviews and life encounters, highlighted chasms between the sexes, and was likely cause an existential crisis for anyone pondering on it extensively. Additionally, there came the predictable follow-up where men of a certain stripe took to the internet to inform women how stupid they were for choosing the bear and proceeded to describe the consequences they merited for that choice. This at least allowed those females who had been hesitating about their decision to make it with renewed assurance.
Portraying the Setup
The Bear-Cooking Tale effectively dramatises this nifty small premise. This six-episode drama is adapted on Scandinavian writer Mikael Niemi’s 2018 book with the identical title (translated in 2020 for English readers). It follows the struggles of a pastor (the lead actor) and his family when they arrive to start a fresh religious post in Kengis, a remote settlement in Sweden’s north, during the mid-19th century. In a place lacking many joys, none of the inhabitants especially appreciate his strict approach to alcohol and revelry, yet it is his defense of the poor – especially 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 sets him on a collision course with the Kengis local authorities.
The Opposing Forces
Soon collaborating against him include the lawman Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating mill owner the matron Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed initially firing a recently mangled laborer with a month’s pay while he is still gibbering upon seeing of his pulped hand, and all others who profit from a populace who can be bought for a few bottles of the whisky sold by the creepy store owner Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness pales once itinerant painter the artist Beronius appears in the story (Simon J Berger, delivering a performance of exceptional discomfiting power). If they are – similar to the clergyman – only a little more than caricatures, they are at least effective ones.
Narrative Development
With the seeds of tension sown, it is time to get down with the storyline. The servant employed by the doctor, the character Hilda (the actress), accordingly vanishes in the forest. Signs of her escape and animal scratches on a tree are found yet she remains nowhere to be seen. Gossip and fears regarding a human-devouring bear prowling the woods spread, but the pastor holds a different view which he and his ward embark to prove.
An Odd Beast
To Cook a Bear is a somewhat odd beast. It creates a strong impression of the bleakness that lets suspicion and prejudice and grim legends flourish based on local folklore that bears might be dominated or inhabited by the spirits of humans. It avoids romanticise the tough existence led by the residents, in which violence, whether that of nature or mankind, always looms on the edges, poised to explode. Yet the personas seldom evolve beyond symbols – or maybe, while the conflicts amid fairness and revenge, logic and religion, virtue and wickedness intensify, emblematic figures within a moral tale – which stops the entire production fully coming to life.
Stylistic Shifts
Additionally, exist numerous tonally jarring instances where the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and discern the maid’s destiny becomes almost risible. He positions himself looking at broken milk pots and strands of fur within storage sheds like a combined the Belgian detective and Sherlock Holmes – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (neither of whom had to taste a blend of blood droplets and saliva from his superior to agree that, yes, it was clearly dried blood on the site), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and extracting a body from a bog.
Opposing Goals
The local leaders are determined demonstrating that the maid met her end by an animal, perhaps to protect the peace, or possibly to protect a fellow elite. The pastor is bent on establishing the opposite, and the evidence so rapidly stacks up in his favour that once more the drama’s plausibility and the viewer’s patience are tested. At its best, the series evokes memories of the TV version some years back of the author’s The Essex Serpent, with its evocation of the competing attractions and fears offered by science and belief. In its low points, it’s more like a bear-themed police procedural. Nevertheless, it appears to provide the response to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”
To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ currently.
