A heated debate lately spread widely across online platforms, following someone asked the question for females: would you rather find yourself stranded in a forest alongside a male or with a bear? Similar to the best hypothetical scenarios, it revealed wildly different perspectives and experiences, highlighted divides among genders, and was likely to induce an existential crisis if you thought about it for too long. There was also 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 proceeded to describe the punishments they deserved for that choice. This at minimum allowed the women who were uncertain over their choice to make it with renewed assurance.
Dramatising the Scenario
The Bear-Cooking Tale skillfully brings to life this nifty little setup. This six-episode drama is adapted from Scandinavian writer Mikael Niemi’s 2018 book with the identical title (rendered in 2020 for an English audience). It follows the tribulations of a clergyman (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his family as they come to begin a new ministry in Kengis, an isolated village in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. Within a community lacking many joys, not one of the inhabitants especially appreciate his strict stance on alcohol and revelry, but it is his protection of impoverished people – especially the indigenous Sami, from among whom hails the pastor’s foster child Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his belief in societal fairness and equality that places him in direct opposition against the Kengis powers that be.
The Antagonists
Soon collaborating opposing him include the sheriff the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the intimidating factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (the actress), observed early on dismissing a newly injured laborer with minimal compensation as he remains gibbering at the sight of his pulped hand, and all others who profit from a community who can be bought with some containers of liquor sold by the unsettling store owner Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, to be fair, Lindmark’s creepiness pales when travelling artist Beronius appears in the story (the performer, delivering a performance of rare unsettling intensity). If they are – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond than caricatures, they still serve as potent archetypes.
Narrative Development
With the seeds of conflict planted, the moment arrives to proceed to narrative business. The maid from the doctor’s house, Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), duly vanishes in the forest. Indications of her escape and animal scratches upon a trunk are found yet she remains completely absent. Gossip and anxieties regarding a human-devouring beast prowling the woodland circulate, yet the clergyman has another theory that he and Jussi set out to prove.
An Odd Beast
To Cook a Bear is a somewhat peculiar show. It creates a strong impression of the bleakness that lets suspicion and bias and dark myths flourish from the native legend that animals can be controlled or possessed by the souls of humans. And it doesn’t idealising the hardscrabble life led by the villagers, in which violence, whether that of nature or people, lurks constantly on the edges, poised to explode. But the characters seldom evolve beyond symbols – or perhaps, while the conflicts amid fairness and revenge, logic and faith, good and evil escalate, representative characters within a moral tale – preventing the entire production fully becoming immersive.
Stylistic Shifts
And then, there are the many stylistically clashing moments in which the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and determine Hilda’s fate turns almost risible. He stands looking at shattered containers and clumps of hair in hay barns as a fusion of Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – with Jussi a rather hapless assistant figure (neither of whom were required to lick a mixture of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to confirm that indeed, it was clearly dried blood on the site), before announcing his latest deduction and pulling a body out of a swamp.
Clashing Agendas
The village elite are bent on proving that the maid was killed by an animal, perhaps to protect the calm, or possibly to protect one of their own. The clergyman is intent on establishing otherwise, and the proof so quickly stacks up supporting his view that once more the show’s credibility and audience tolerance get strained. In its finest moments, the series is reminiscent of the adaptation a few years ago of the author’s The Essex Serpent, through its portrayal of the opposing attractions and terrors offered by rational thought and religion. In its low points, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Nevertheless, it does seem to provide the answer to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”
To Cook a Bear is on Disney+ currently.
