A heated discussion recently went viral on social media, following someone asked the question to women: would you rather be lost in the woods alongside a male or with a bear? Similar to the most engaging thought experiments, it revealed wildly different worldviews and life encounters, highlighted divides among genders, and was likely cause a deep personal dilemma for anyone pondering on it extensively. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable coda where some males came online to tell females how stupid they had been for choosing the animal and proceeded to limn the consequences they merited for that choice. This at minimum enabled the women who had been hesitating about their decision to decide with a new confidence.
Dramatising the Setup
The Bear-Cooking Tale effectively dramatises this nifty small premise. This six-episode series is based from Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s 2018 book of the same name (rendered in 2020 for an English audience). It follows the struggles of a pastor (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his household as they come to start a new ministry in Kengis, an isolated village in northern Sweden, in 1852. In a place lacking many joys, none of the locals especially warm to his strict approach to alcohol and dancing, yet it is his defense of the poor – particularly the native Sami population, from which hails the preacher’s adopted son Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his belief in societal fairness and equality that sets him in direct opposition against the Kengis powers that be.
The Antagonists
Quickly in cahoots against him include the lawman the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen early on dismissing a recently mangled laborer with minimal compensation while he is still gibbering at the sight of his pulped hand, and all others who profit from a populace easily swayed with some containers of the whisky provided by the creepy shopkeeper Lindmark (the actor). Although, to be fair, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes when itinerant painter the artist Beronius arrives on the scene (the performer, providing an acting turn of rare discomfiting power). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond than caricatures, they are at least effective ones.
Plot Progression
Once the foundations of conflict planted, the moment arrives to proceed to narrative business. The maid employed by the doctor, Hilda (the actress), duly goes missing from the woods. Indications of her escape and bear markings upon a trunk get discovered yet she remains completely absent. Rumours and fears regarding a human-devouring beast prowling the woods spread, yet the clergyman holds a different view that he and Jussi set out to verify.
An Odd Beast
To Cook a Bear is a somewhat odd beast. It conjures a strong impression of the desolation that lets suspicion and prejudice and dark myths flourish from the native legend that animals might be dominated or inhabited by the spirits of humans. It avoids romanticise the tough existence experienced by the villagers, where violence, whether that of nature or mankind, lurks constantly at the periphery, poised to explode. Yet the personas seldom evolve beyond symbols – or maybe, as the struggles amid fairness and revenge, rationality and faith, virtue and wickedness escalate, emblematic figures within a moral tale – preventing the whole thing fully coming to life.
Tonal Inconsistencies
Additionally, there are numerous stylistically clashing moments in which the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and discern the maid’s destiny turns nearly laughable. He stands observing shattered containers and clumps of hair within storage sheds like a combined Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (none of whom were required to lick a blend of blood droplets and saliva from his superior to agree that, yes, it was definitely coagulated blood on the site), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and extracting a body out of a swamp.
Clashing Agendas
The village elite are determined demonstrating that the maid was killed by a bear, perhaps to preserve the calm, or possibly to shield a fellow elite. The pastor is bent on proving the opposite, and the proof so quickly accumulates in his favour that again the drama’s plausibility and the viewer’s patience are tested. At its best, the series evokes memories of the adaptation some years back of the author’s The Essex Serpent, with its evocation of the competing attractions and terrors presented by rational thought and religion. At its worst, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it appears to offer the answer to the earlier query: “Females, choose the animal.”
The series is on Disney+ currently.
