An intense discussion recently spread widely across online platforms, following someone posed the question to women: would you rather find yourself stranded in the woods with a man or with a bear? Similar to the most engaging hypothetical scenarios, it exposed wildly different perspectives and life encounters, illuminated chasms among genders, and was likely cause an existential crisis for anyone pondering about it for too long. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable follow-up where some males took to the internet to inform females how stupid they were to select the bear and went on to limn the punishments they merited for that choice. This at minimum enabled the women who had been hesitating over their choice to decide with a new confidence.
Dramatising the Scenario
The Bear-Cooking Tale effectively brings to life this clever small premise. This six-episode drama is based from Scandinavian writer Mikael Niemi’s 2018 novel of the same name (translated in 2020 for English readers). It follows the tribulations of a clergyman (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his family when they arrive to begin a fresh religious post in Kengis, a remote settlement in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. Within a community lacking many joys, none of the locals especially appreciate his strict stance on alcohol and revelry, but it is his defense of the poor – particularly the native Sami population, from among whom comes the pastor’s foster child Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his conviction in social justice and equal rights that sets him on a collision course against the Kengis local authorities.
The Opposing Forces
Quickly collaborating against him include the lawman Brahe (the performer), the intimidating mill owner Madam Sjödahl (the actress), seen initially firing a newly injured laborer with minimal compensation as he remains babbling at the sight his crushed hand, and all others who benefit from a populace easily swayed with some containers of the whisky sold by the creepy store owner Lindmark (the actor). Although, to be fair, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes when travelling artist Beronius arrives on the scene (Simon J Berger, delivering a performance of rare unsettling intensity). If they are – like the pastor himself – just slightly beyond than caricatures, they are at least effective ones.
Narrative Development
With the seeds of tension planted, the moment arrives to proceed to narrative business. The maid employed by the doctor, Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), accordingly vanishes from the woods. Signs of her flight and animal scratches on a tree get discovered but she is nowhere to be seen. Gossip and anxieties regarding a human-devouring beast prowling the woodland circulate, yet the clergyman holds a different view which he and his ward set out to verify.
An Odd Beast
To Cook a Bear is a slightly peculiar show. It conjures a fine sense of the desolation that lets distrust and prejudice and grim legends flourish from the native legend that bears can be controlled or inhabited by the spirits of men. And it doesn’t idealising the tough existence led by the villagers, where brutality, be it from nature or mankind, lurks constantly at the periphery, poised to explode. But the characters seldom evolve beyond symbols – or perhaps, while the conflicts amid fairness and revenge, logic and religion, good and evil escalate, emblematic figures within a moral tale – preventing the entire production fully becoming immersive.
Stylistic Shifts
And then, there are the many tonally jarring moments where the clergyman’s skill to discover clues and discern the maid’s destiny turns almost risible. He stands looking at broken milk pots and clumps of hair in hay barns like a combined Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (neither of whom were required to taste a blend of blood spatter and the boss’s spit to confirm that, yes, it was definitely coagulated blood on the site), prior to declaring his latest deduction and extracting a body out of a swamp.
Opposing Goals
The village elite are bent on proving that the maid met her end by an animal, maybe to protect the peace, or possibly to shield one of their own. The clergyman is intent on proving the opposite, and the proof so rapidly stacks up in his favour that once more the drama’s plausibility and audience tolerance get strained. In its finest moments, the series is reminiscent of the adaptation some years back of the author’s The Essex Serpent, through its portrayal of the opposing attractions and terrors presented by science and belief. 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.”
The series streams on Disney+ currently.
