An heated debate lately went viral on social media, after someone asked a query for females: which would you prefer find yourself stranded in the woods alongside a male or with a bear? Similar to the most engaging hypothetical scenarios, it revealed wildly different worldviews and experiences, illuminated divides between the sexes, and was likely cause an existential crisis if you thought about it for too long. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable coda in which men of a certain stripe took to the internet to inform females how stupid they had been for choosing the animal and went on to describe the consequences they deserved for that choice. This at least enabled those females who had been hesitating about their decision to decide with renewed assurance.
Dramatising the Setup
The Bear-Cooking Tale effectively dramatises this clever little setup. This six-episode series is based on Swedish author the novelist’s 2018 novel with the identical title (rendered in 2020 for an English audience). It traces the tribulations of a clergyman (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his household when they arrive to begin a fresh religious post within Kengis, an isolated village in Sweden’s north, in 1852. Within a community with few pleasures, none of the inhabitants particularly appreciate his strict approach to drinking and dancing, yet it is his defense of impoverished people – particularly the indigenous Sami, from among whom hails the preacher’s adopted son the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his conviction in societal fairness and equal rights that places him on a collision course against the Kengis powers that be.
The Antagonists
Quickly collaborating against him are the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating mill owner Madam Sjödahl (the actress), seen early on firing a newly injured laborer with a month’s pay while he is still gibbering at the sight his crushed hand, and all others who benefit from a community easily swayed with some containers of liquor provided by the creepy store owner Lindmark (the actor). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes when travelling artist Beronius arrives in the story (the performer, providing a performance of rare discomfiting power). If they are – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, they still serve as potent archetypes.
Plot Progression
Once the foundations of tension planted, the moment arrives to get down to narrative business. The maid employed by the doctor, Hilda (the actress), duly goes missing in the forest. Indications of her escape and bear markings upon a trunk get discovered yet she remains nowhere to be seen. Rumours and fears of a man/maid-eating beast roaming the woods spread, but the pastor holds a different view that he and Jussi embark to prove.
A Strange Creation
To Cook a Bear is a slightly peculiar show. It conjures a strong impression of the bleakness that allows suspicion and prejudice and dark myths flourish based on local folklore that animals can be controlled or possessed by the spirits of men. And it doesn’t romanticise the tough existence experienced by the residents, in which violence, whether that of the wild or mankind, always looms at the periphery, poised to explode. But the characters seldom evolve beyond symbols – or perhaps, as the struggles between justice and vengeance, logic and faith, virtue and evil escalate, emblematic figures within a moral tale – which stops the entire production fully coming to life.
Tonal Inconsistencies
And then, exist numerous stylistically clashing instances where the clergyman’s skill to discover clues and discern the maid’s destiny turns almost risible. He stands observing broken milk pots and clumps of hair in hay barns like a combined Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – alongside Jussi a rather hapless assistant figure (none of whom had to lick a mixture of blood droplets and saliva from his superior to agree that, yes, it was definitely coagulated blood at the crime scene), before announcing his latest deduction and pulling a corpse out of a swamp.
Clashing Agendas
The village elite are bent on demonstrating that the maid met her end by an animal, maybe to preserve the peace, or possibly to shield one of their own. The clergyman is bent on establishing the opposite, and the evidence so quickly accumulates in his favour that once more the drama’s plausibility and the viewer’s patience get strained. In its finest moments, the series evokes memories of the adaptation some years back of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the opposing attractions and terrors presented by rational thought and religion. In its low points, it’s more like Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it does seem to offer the answer to that debated question: “Females, choose the animal.”
The series is on Disney+ currently.
