An heated debate recently 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 thought experiments, it revealed wildly different perspectives and experiences, illuminated chasms between the sexes, and could easily cause an existential crisis for anyone pondering on it extensively. There was also the predictable coda in which some males came online to tell females how foolish they were to select the bear and went on to describe the punishments they deserved for that choice. This at minimum enabled the women who had been hesitating about their decision to decide with a new confidence.
Portraying the Setup
The Bear-Cooking Tale skillfully dramatises this clever small premise. This six-episode series is based on Swedish author the novelist’s 2018 novel with the identical title (rendered in 2020 for English readers). It traces the tribulations of a pastor (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his household as they come to begin a new ministry in Kengis, a remote village in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. In a place lacking many joys, none of the locals particularly warm to his puritanical stance on alcohol and dancing, yet it is his defense of impoverished people – particularly the native Sami population, from which hails the preacher’s adopted son the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his belief in social justice and equal rights that places him in direct opposition with the Kengis powers that be.
The Antagonists
Soon collaborating against him are the lawman Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating mill owner the matron Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed initially firing a recently mangled laborer with minimal compensation as he remains babbling upon seeing of his pulped hand, and anyone else who profit from a populace who can be bought with some containers of the whisky sold by the creepy store owner the merchant Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, to be fair, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes once itinerant painter Beronius appears on the scene (Simon J Berger, delivering a performance of exceptional unsettling intensity). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – only a little more than caricatures, they are at least effective ones.
Plot Progression
Once the foundations of conflict planted, the moment arrives to get down with the storyline. The maid from the doctor’s house, Hilda (the actress), accordingly vanishes in the forest. Indications of her flight and animal scratches on a tree get discovered yet she remains completely absent. Gossip and fears regarding a human-devouring beast roaming the woodland circulate, yet the clergyman has another theory which he and his ward set out to verify.
An Odd Beast
To Cook a Bear is a somewhat odd beast. It creates a fine sense of the desolation that lets suspicion and bias and dark myths thrive based on local folklore that bears can be controlled or possessed by the souls of humans. It avoids romanticise the tough existence led by the villagers, in which brutality, be it from the wild or people, always looms at the periphery, waiting to erupt. But the characters seldom evolve beyond symbols – or perhaps, while the conflicts between justice and vengeance, logic and religion, virtue and evil escalate, representative characters within a moral tale – which stops the whole thing fully coming to life.
Stylistic Shifts
Additionally, there are numerous stylistically clashing moments where the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and determine the maid’s destiny becomes nearly laughable. He stands observing shattered containers and clumps of hair in hay barns like a combined Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – with Jussi a rather hapless assistant figure (none of whom had to taste a mixture of blood droplets and saliva from his superior to agree that, yes, it was definitely dried blood on the site), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and extracting a body from a bog.
Clashing Agendas
The village elite are bent on proving that Hilda was killed by an animal, maybe to protect the calm, or possibly to shield a fellow elite. The pastor is intent on proving the opposite, and the evidence so quickly stacks up 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 a few years ago of the author’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the competing allures and fears offered by science and belief. In its low points, it resembles a bear-themed police procedural. Still, it does seem to provide the response to that debated question: “Ladies, take the bear.”
The series streams on Disney+ now.
