A intense discussion lately spread widely on social media, after someone asked a query for females: would you rather find yourself stranded in a forest alongside a male or a bear? Similar to the best hypothetical scenarios, it revealed vastly opposing perspectives and life encounters, illuminated chasms among genders, and could easily to induce an existential crisis if you thought on it for too long. There was also the predictable coda where men of a certain stripe came online to tell women how foolish they had been to select the animal and went on to limn the punishments they deserved for that choice. This at least enabled the women who were uncertain over their choice to make it with renewed assurance.
Portraying the Scenario
The Bear-Cooking Tale skillfully dramatises this clever small premise. This six-episode drama is adapted on Scandinavian writer Mikael Niemi’s 2018 book with the identical title (translated in 2020 for an English audience). It traces the tribulations of a pastor (the lead actor) and his household when they arrive to start a new ministry within Kengis, a remote settlement in Sweden’s north, during the mid-19th century. In a place lacking many joys, none of the locals especially appreciate his puritanical stance on drinking and dancing, but it is his protection of impoverished people – especially the native Sami population, from which hails the pastor’s foster child the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his belief in societal fairness and equal rights that places him on a collision course against the Kengis powers that be.
The Opposing Forces
Soon collaborating opposing him are the lawman Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the fearsome mill owner Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed initially firing a recently mangled worker with a month’s pay as he remains gibbering at the sight of his pulped hand, and all others who profit from a community who can be bought with some containers of liquor sold by the unsettling shopkeeper Lindmark (the actor). However, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes once itinerant painter the artist Beronius appears in the story (Simon J Berger, providing an acting turn of exceptional discomfiting power). If they are – like the pastor himself – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, they are at least effective ones.
Plot Progression
With the seeds of tension planted, it is time to proceed with the storyline. The servant employed by the doctor, Hilda (the actress), accordingly vanishes from the woods. Indications of her escape and animal scratches on a tree are found 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 prejudice and dark myths flourish from the native legend that bears might be dominated or inhabited by the souls of humans. It avoids idealising the tough existence led by the villagers, where violence, be it from the wild or mankind, always looms at the periphery, waiting to erupt. But the characters rarely become beyond symbols – or maybe, while the conflicts between justice and vengeance, logic and faith, good and wickedness intensify, representative characters in a fable – preventing the entire production fully becoming immersive.
Stylistic Shifts
Additionally, exist numerous tonally jarring instances where the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and discern Hilda’s fate becomes almost risible. He positions himself observing shattered containers and strands of fur in hay barns like a combined the Belgian detective the English sleuth – alongside Jussi a rather hapless assistant figure (neither of whom had to taste a blend of blood droplets and the boss’s spit to confirm that indeed, it was clearly coagulated blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his latest deduction and extracting a body from a bog.
Clashing Agendas
The local leaders are bent on proving that Hilda was killed by a bear, perhaps to protect the calm, perhaps to protect one of their own. The pastor is bent on proving the opposite, and the evidence so quickly accumulates in his favour that once more the drama’s plausibility and the viewer’s patience get strained. In its finest moments, the series evokes memories of the TV version some years back of the author’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the competing allures and fears presented by science and belief. In its low points, it’s more like 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.
