A heated discussion lately went viral across online platforms, following someone posed a query for females: which would you prefer be lost in a forest with a man or with a bear? Similar to the most engaging hypothetical scenarios, it exposed wildly different perspectives and experiences, illuminated chasms between the sexes, and could easily cause an existential crisis for anyone pondering about it for too long. There was also the predictable coda where some males came online to tell women how stupid they had been to select the animal and went on to limn the consequences they deserved for it. This at minimum allowed those females who were uncertain about their decision to decide with renewed assurance.
Dramatising the Scenario
The Bear-Cooking Tale effectively brings to life this nifty little setup. The six-part series is based on Scandinavian writer Mikael Niemi’s 2018 book of the same name (translated two years later for English readers). It traces the struggles of a clergyman (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his family when they arrive to start a fresh religious post within Kengis, a remote settlement in northern Sweden, in 1852. Within a community with few pleasures, none of the locals especially warm to his strict approach to alcohol and revelry, yet it is his protection of the poor – especially the native Sami population, from among whom comes the preacher’s foster child the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his belief in societal fairness and equal rights that sets him on a collision course against the Kengis local authorities.
The Opposing Forces
Quickly in cahoots against him are the lawman Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the fearsome factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (the actress), seen initially firing a newly injured laborer with a month’s pay while he is still gibbering upon seeing his crushed hand, and anyone else who profit from a populace who can be bought for a few bottles of the whisky provided by the creepy shopkeeper the merchant Lindmark (the actor). However, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness pales when travelling artist Beronius arrives on the scene (the performer, delivering an acting turn of exceptional unsettling intensity). If they are – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond than caricatures, they are at least potent archetypes.
Plot Progression
With the seeds of conflict sown, it is time to proceed with the storyline. The servant from the doctor’s house, the character Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), accordingly vanishes in the forest. Indications of her flight and bear markings upon a trunk are found yet she remains completely absent. Gossip and fears regarding a human-devouring bear prowling the woods spread, but the pastor holds a different view that he and Jussi set out to prove.
An Odd Beast
To Cook a Bear is a somewhat peculiar show. It creates a fine sense of the bleakness that lets distrust and prejudice and dark myths flourish from the native legend that animals might be dominated or possessed by the souls of humans. And it doesn’t idealising the hardscrabble life experienced by the residents, where violence, whether that of nature or people, lurks constantly at the periphery, poised to explode. Yet the personas seldom evolve more than ciphers – or maybe, while the conflicts amid fairness and revenge, rationality and religion, virtue and wickedness intensify, representative characters in a fable – which stops the entire production fully coming to life.
Stylistic Shifts
And then, exist numerous stylistically clashing instances in which the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and discern the maid’s destiny becomes almost risible. He positions himself observing shattered containers and strands of fur within storage sheds like a combined Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (neither of whom were required to taste a mixture of blood droplets and saliva from his superior to agree that indeed, it was clearly dried blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and pulling a body out of a swamp.
Clashing Agendas
The local leaders are bent on demonstrating that Hilda met her end by an animal, maybe to protect the calm, perhaps to protect one of their own. The pastor is intent on proving the opposite, and the evidence so quickly stacks up in his favour that again the drama’s plausibility and the viewer’s patience get strained. At its best, the series evokes memories of the adaptation a few years ago of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the competing allures and terrors presented by rational thought and belief. At its worst, it’s more like Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it does seem to offer the response to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”
To Cook a Bear is on Disney+ currently.
