A heated discussion lately spread widely across online platforms, following a user posed the question for females: which would you prefer be lost in a forest with a man or a bear? Like all the best thought experiments, it exposed vastly opposing worldviews and life encounters, highlighted chasms between the sexes, and could easily cause an existential crisis for anyone pondering on it for too long. There was also the predictable coda in which some males came online to inform women how stupid they were to select the bear and proceeded to describe the consequences they deserved for it. This at minimum allowed the women who had been hesitating over their choice to decide with a new confidence.
Portraying the Setup
The Bear-Cooking Tale effectively brings to life this clever small premise. The six-part series is adapted from Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s 2018 book with the identical title (rendered in 2020 for an English audience). It traces the struggles of a pastor (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. In a place with few pleasures, not one of the locals especially warm to his strict approach to alcohol and dancing, but it is his protection of the poor – particularly the native Sami population, from among whom comes the preacher’s foster child Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his conviction in societal fairness and equality that sets him in direct opposition against the Kengis powers that be.
The Opposing Forces
Soon collaborating against him are the sheriff the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the fearsome factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen early on firing a newly injured laborer with minimal compensation while he is still gibbering upon seeing his crushed hand, and all others who profit from a community easily swayed with some containers of liquor provided by the creepy shopkeeper Lindmark (the actor). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes once travelling artist Beronius appears on the scene (the performer, delivering an acting turn of exceptional discomfiting power). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond than caricatures, they still serve as effective ones.
Plot Progression
With the seeds of tension planted, it is time to get down with the storyline. The maid employed by the doctor, the character Hilda (the actress), accordingly goes missing from the woods. Signs of her escape and animal scratches on a tree get discovered yet she remains nowhere to be seen. Gossip and fears regarding a human-devouring bear prowling the woodland circulate, but the pastor has another theory which he and his ward embark to prove.
A Strange Creation
To Cook a Bear is a somewhat peculiar show. It creates a strong impression of the desolation that allows suspicion and bias and grim legends thrive based on local folklore that animals can be controlled or inhabited by the souls of men. It avoids idealising the hardscrabble life led by the villagers, where brutality, be it from nature or people, lurks constantly on the edges, poised to explode. But the characters rarely become beyond symbols – or maybe, as the struggles between justice and revenge, logic and faith, good and evil escalate, representative characters in a fable – preventing the entire production truly coming to life.
Stylistic Shifts
Additionally, exist numerous tonally jarring moments in which the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and discern the maid’s destiny turns nearly laughable. He positions himself observing shattered containers and strands of fur in hay barns like a combined Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (none of whom were required to taste a blend of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to confirm that, yes, it was definitely coagulated blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his latest deduction and extracting a corpse from a bog.
Clashing Agendas
The village elite are bent on demonstrating that Hilda met her end by an animal, maybe to protect the peace, perhaps to shield a fellow elite. The clergyman is intent on proving otherwise, and the evidence so quickly stacks up in his favour that again the drama’s plausibility and audience tolerance are tested. At its best, the series evokes memories of the TV version a few years ago of the author’s The Essex Serpent, with its evocation of the opposing allures and fears presented by rational thought and belief. In its low points, it resembles a bear-themed police procedural. Nevertheless, it appears to offer the response to that debated question: “Females, choose the animal.”
The series streams on Disney+ now.
