An intense discussion lately went viral on social media, following a user asked the question for females: which would you prefer find yourself stranded in a forest alongside a male or a bear? Like all the most engaging hypothetical scenarios, it exposed wildly different worldviews and experiences, highlighted chasms between the sexes, and was likely to induce an existential crisis for anyone pondering about it for too long. There was also the predictable coda in which some males took to the internet to tell women how stupid they were for choosing the animal and proceeded to limn the consequences they deserved for that choice. This at minimum allowed those females who had been hesitating over their choice to make it with a new confidence.
Portraying the Scenario
The Bear-Cooking Tale effectively brings to life this nifty little setup. This six-episode drama is adapted on Swedish author the novelist’s 2018 book with the identical title (rendered two years later for English readers). It follows the tribulations of a clergyman (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his family when they arrive to start a fresh religious post within Kengis, a remote settlement in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. Within a community lacking many joys, not one of the inhabitants particularly appreciate his strict stance on alcohol and dancing, but it is his protection of impoverished people – especially the native Sami population, from among whom comes the preacher’s foster child Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in societal fairness and equality that sets him on a collision course with the Kengis local authorities.
The Antagonists
Soon collaborating opposing him are the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the fearsome factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (the actress), observed early on firing a newly injured laborer with a month’s pay as he remains babbling upon seeing his crushed hand, and all others who profit from a community easily swayed for a few bottles of the whisky sold by the unsettling shopkeeper Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). However, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes when itinerant painter Beronius appears in the story (the performer, providing a performance of exceptional discomfiting power). If they are – like the pastor himself – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, they still serve as potent archetypes.
Plot Progression
With the seeds of tension planted, it is time to proceed with the storyline. The maid employed by the doctor, the character Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), duly vanishes from the woods. Signs of her flight and bear markings upon a trunk get discovered yet she remains completely absent. Rumours and fears regarding a human-devouring bear roaming the woodland circulate, but the pastor has another theory which he and his ward set out to prove.
A Strange Creation
To Cook a Bear is a somewhat peculiar show. It creates a strong impression of the bleakness that allows distrust and prejudice and dark myths thrive based on local folklore that bears might be dominated or inhabited by the spirits of humans. It avoids idealising the hardscrabble life led by the villagers, in which brutality, be it from the wild or mankind, always looms on the edges, waiting to erupt. Yet the personas rarely become more than ciphers – or maybe, as the struggles amid fairness and vengeance, rationality and religion, virtue and wickedness escalate, emblematic figures in a fable – which stops the whole thing truly coming to life.
Stylistic Shifts
Additionally, exist the many stylistically clashing moments where the pastor’s ability to discover clues and discern Hilda’s fate becomes nearly laughable. He stands looking at shattered containers and clumps of hair within storage sheds like a combined the Belgian detective and Sherlock Holmes – alongside Jussi a rather hapless Hastings-cum-Watson (none of whom were required to taste a mixture of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to confirm that indeed, it was definitely dried blood at the crime scene), before announcing his latest deduction and pulling a body from a bog.
Opposing Goals
The local leaders are determined proving that Hilda was killed by an animal, perhaps to preserve the calm, perhaps to protect one of their own. The clergyman is intent on proving the opposite, and the evidence so quickly accumulates in his favour that once more the show’s credibility and audience tolerance are tested. In its finest moments, the series evokes memories of the adaptation some years back of the author’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the competing allures and terrors presented by rational thought and belief. At its worst, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Nevertheless, it does seem to provide the answer to that debated question: “Females, choose the animal.”
The series is on Disney+ now.
