An intense discussion lately spread widely across online platforms, after a user posed the question for females: would you rather be lost in a forest with a man or with a bear? Like all the most engaging thought experiments, it exposed vastly opposing perspectives and life encounters, highlighted chasms between the sexes, and could easily cause an existential crisis for anyone pondering about it for too long. There was also the almost inevitable follow-up where men of a certain stripe took to the internet to tell women how stupid they had been for choosing the animal and went on to limn the consequences they deserved for it. This at minimum enabled the women who had been hesitating over their choice to decide with renewed assurance.
Portraying the Scenario
The Bear-Cooking Tale skillfully dramatises this nifty little setup. This six-episode series is based from Scandinavian writer the novelist’s 2018 novel of the same name (translated two years later for English readers). It traces the tribulations of a clergyman (the lead actor) and his family as they come to begin a new ministry in Kengis, an isolated village in Sweden’s north, during the mid-19th century. In a place lacking many joys, not one of the locals especially warm to his strict stance on alcohol and dancing, yet it is his protection of impoverished people – particularly the native Sami population, from among whom hails the pastor’s adopted son Jussi (the young actor) – and his conviction in social justice and equal rights that sets him on a collision course with the Kengis powers that be.
The Opposing Forces
Quickly in cahoots opposing him include the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the fearsome factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (the actress), observed early on firing a recently mangled laborer with minimal compensation as he remains gibbering at the sight his crushed hand, and all others who profit from a populace who can be bought for a few bottles of liquor sold by the creepy shopkeeper Lindmark (the actor). Although, to be fair, Lindmark’s eeriness pales once itinerant painter Beronius appears in the story (Simon J Berger, delivering a performance of exceptional discomfiting power). While they remain – like the pastor himself – just slightly beyond than caricatures, they are at least effective ones.
Plot Progression
Once the foundations of conflict sown, the moment arrives to get down with the storyline. The servant from the doctor’s house, the character Hilda (the actress), duly vanishes in the forest. Indications of her escape and animal scratches upon a trunk get discovered but she is nowhere to be seen. Rumours and fears of a man/maid-eating bear roaming the woods spread, yet the clergyman has another theory that he and Jussi embark to prove.
A Strange Creation
To Cook a Bear is a somewhat odd beast. It creates a strong impression of the bleakness that lets suspicion and prejudice and dark myths flourish based on local folklore that bears might be dominated or possessed by the souls of humans. It avoids romanticise the hardscrabble life experienced by the residents, in which violence, whether that of the wild or mankind, lurks constantly on the edges, poised to explode. But the characters seldom evolve more than ciphers – or maybe, as the struggles between justice and vengeance, rationality and faith, virtue and evil intensify, representative characters within a moral tale – preventing the entire production truly coming to life.
Tonal Inconsistencies
And then, there are numerous stylistically clashing moments where the clergyman’s skill to discover clues and discern the maid’s destiny turns nearly laughable. He positions himself observing broken milk pots and clumps of hair within storage sheds as a fusion of the Belgian detective and Sherlock Holmes – with Jussi a rather hapless assistant figure (neither of whom had to taste a blend of blood droplets and the boss’s spit to agree that, yes, it was clearly dried blood on the site), before announcing his latest deduction and pulling a corpse from a bog.
Opposing Goals
The local leaders are bent on demonstrating that the maid was killed by an animal, perhaps to preserve the peace, perhaps to protect a fellow elite. The pastor is bent on establishing the opposite, and the evidence so rapidly accumulates supporting his view that again the show’s credibility and audience tolerance get strained. In its finest moments, the series is reminiscent of the TV version a few years ago of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the competing allures and fears offered by science and belief. At its worst, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Nevertheless, it appears to offer the response to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”
To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ currently.
