An heated debate recently went viral on social media, following someone posed a query to women: which would you prefer be lost in a forest with a man or with a bear? Similar to the best hypothetical scenarios, it exposed vastly opposing perspectives and experiences, illuminated divides among genders, and was likely to induce an existential crisis for anyone pondering about it for too long. Additionally, there came the predictable coda where some males took to the internet to tell females how foolish they had been to select the animal and proceeded to describe the consequences they merited for that choice. This at minimum enabled those females who were uncertain about their decision to decide with a new confidence.
Dramatising the Scenario
The Bear-Cooking Tale skillfully brings to life this clever small premise. The six-part drama is based on Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s 2018 novel with the identical title (translated two years later for an English audience). It traces the struggles of a pastor (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his family when they arrive to begin a new ministry within Kengis, an isolated village in Sweden’s north, in 1852. Within a community lacking many joys, none of the locals particularly warm to his strict approach to drinking and dancing, but it is his defense of impoverished people – especially the indigenous Sami, from which hails the pastor’s adopted son Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in societal fairness and equality that sets him in direct opposition with the Kengis powers that be.
The Antagonists
Quickly collaborating against him include the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the intimidating factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen initially firing a newly injured laborer with a month’s pay while he is still gibbering at the sight his crushed hand, and all others who profit from a community who can be bought with some containers of liquor sold by the unsettling store owner Lindmark (the actor). However, to be fair, Lindmark’s creepiness pales when travelling artist Beronius appears in the story (the performer, providing a performance of exceptional unsettling intensity). If they are – like the pastor himself – only a little more being stereotypes, they still serve as effective ones.
Narrative Development
Once the foundations of tension planted, the moment arrives to get down with the storyline. The servant from the doctor’s house, Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), accordingly goes missing from the woods. Indications of her flight and animal scratches on a tree get discovered but she is completely absent. Gossip and fears regarding a human-devouring bear prowling the woods spread, but the pastor holds a different view that he and Jussi embark to prove.
A Strange Creation
To Cook a Bear is a somewhat odd beast. It creates a fine sense of the desolation that lets distrust and prejudice and grim legends thrive from the native legend that animals can be controlled or inhabited by the souls of humans. It avoids romanticise the hardscrabble life experienced by the residents, in which violence, be it from nature or mankind, always looms on the edges, poised to explode. Yet the personas seldom evolve beyond symbols – or maybe, while the conflicts between justice and vengeance, rationality and faith, good and evil intensify, emblematic figures in a fable – which stops the entire production fully coming to life.
Stylistic Shifts
And then, there are numerous tonally jarring instances in which the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and determine Hilda’s fate becomes nearly laughable. He positions himself observing broken milk pots and strands of fur within storage sheds like a combined the Belgian detective the English sleuth – alongside Jussi a rather hapless Hastings-cum-Watson (none of whom were required to lick a blend of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to confirm that, yes, it was clearly dried blood on the site), before announcing his newest conclusion and extracting a body from a bog.
Opposing Goals
The local leaders are determined proving that Hilda was killed by an animal, perhaps to protect the calm, perhaps to shield a fellow elite. The clergyman is intent on establishing otherwise, and the evidence so rapidly stacks up supporting his view that once more the show’s credibility and audience tolerance get strained. At its best, the series is reminiscent of the TV version some years back of the author’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the competing attractions and terrors presented by science and religion. At its worst, it resembles a bear-themed police procedural. Nevertheless, it does seem to provide the response to that debated question: “Ladies, take the bear.”
To Cook a Bear is on Disney+ now.
