A heated discussion lately went viral across online platforms, following a user asked the question to women: would you rather find yourself stranded in the woods with a man or a bear? Like all the most engaging thought experiments, it revealed wildly different perspectives and experiences, highlighted chasms among genders, and was likely to induce an existential crisis if you thought on it extensively. There was also the predictable coda where some males came online to inform women how foolish they were for choosing the animal and proceeded to describe the punishments they merited for it. This at least enabled the women who had been hesitating about their decision to make it with renewed assurance.
Portraying the Setup
The Bear-Cooking Tale effectively dramatises this nifty small premise. The six-part series is based on Swedish author the novelist’s 2018 novel of the same name (rendered in 2020 for an English audience). 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 settlement in Sweden’s north, during the mid-19th century. Within a community lacking many joys, none of the inhabitants especially appreciate his puritanical stance on alcohol and dancing, yet it is his protection of the poor – especially the native Sami population, from among whom hails the preacher’s foster child Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his conviction in social justice and equality that places him on a collision course against the Kengis local authorities.
The Antagonists
Soon collaborating opposing him are the lawman Brahe (the performer), the fearsome factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (the actress), seen initially firing a newly injured worker with a month’s pay as he remains babbling upon seeing of his pulped hand, and all others who profit from a community who can be bought with some containers of the whisky provided by the unsettling store owner Lindmark (the actor). However, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes once travelling artist the artist Beronius appears on the scene (Simon J Berger, delivering a performance of rare unsettling intensity). While they remain – like the pastor himself – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, they still serve as effective ones.
Plot Progression
With the seeds of conflict sown, the moment arrives to get down with the storyline. The servant employed by the doctor, the character Hilda (the actress), duly vanishes in the forest. Signs of her flight and animal scratches on a tree get discovered but she is nowhere to be seen. Gossip and fears of a man/maid-eating bear roaming the woods spread, but the pastor has another theory which he and his ward embark to verify.
An Odd Beast
To Cook a Bear is a somewhat odd beast. It creates a strong impression of the desolation that allows suspicion and bias and dark myths flourish based on local folklore that animals can be controlled or inhabited by the souls of humans. And it doesn’t romanticise the hardscrabble life led by the villagers, where violence, be it from nature or people, always looms at the periphery, poised to explode. Yet the personas seldom evolve more than ciphers – or perhaps, while the conflicts between justice and vengeance, rationality and faith, good and evil intensify, representative characters within a moral tale – preventing the whole thing fully coming to life.
Tonal Inconsistencies
And then, exist numerous tonally jarring instances where the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and discern Hilda’s fate becomes nearly laughable. He stands looking at shattered containers and strands of fur in hay barns like a combined Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – alongside Jussi a rather hapless assistant figure (neither of whom were required to taste a blend of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to agree that, yes, it was clearly dried blood on the site), before announcing his latest deduction and extracting a corpse from a bog.
Clashing Agendas
The local leaders are determined proving that Hilda was killed by an animal, maybe to protect the peace, perhaps to shield one of their own. The pastor is intent on proving otherwise, and the proof so quickly accumulates supporting his view that once more the show’s credibility and the viewer’s patience are tested. At its best, the series is reminiscent of the adaptation some years back of the author’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the competing allures and fears presented by science and religion. In its low points, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it appears to provide the answer to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”
The series streams on Disney+ now.
