A heated discussion recently spread widely across online platforms, following a user posed a query to women: which would you prefer find yourself stranded in the woods with a man or with a bear? Similar to the most engaging thought experiments, it exposed vastly opposing worldviews and experiences, illuminated divides between the sexes, and was likely cause an existential crisis for anyone pondering about it extensively. Additionally, there came the predictable follow-up in which men of a certain stripe came online to tell females how stupid they were for choosing the animal and went on to describe the consequences they deserved for that choice. This at minimum allowed the women who had been hesitating over their choice to make it with a new confidence.
Portraying the Setup
The Bear-Cooking Tale skillfully brings to life this nifty little setup. This six-episode drama is adapted on Swedish author the novelist’s 2018 book of the same name (rendered two years later for English readers). It follows the struggles of a clergyman (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his household as they come to begin a fresh religious post in Kengis, an isolated village in northern Sweden, in 1852. In a place with few pleasures, none of the locals especially warm to his strict approach to drinking and dancing, but it is his protection of the poor – especially the native Sami population, from which hails the preacher’s foster child the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his conviction in societal fairness and equality that sets him on a collision course with the Kengis local authorities.
The Opposing Forces
Quickly in cahoots against him include the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the fearsome factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed early on firing a newly injured worker with minimal compensation as he remains babbling at the sight of his pulped hand, and anyone else who benefit from a populace easily swayed for a few bottles of liquor provided by the creepy shopkeeper the merchant Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). However, to be fair, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes when itinerant painter the artist Beronius appears on the scene (Simon J Berger, delivering an acting turn of exceptional unsettling intensity). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond than caricatures, they still serve as potent archetypes.
Plot Progression
Once the foundations of conflict planted, the moment arrives to get down with the storyline. The servant employed by the doctor, the character Hilda (the actress), accordingly goes missing from the woods. Indications of her flight and bear markings upon a trunk are found yet she remains completely absent. Rumours and fears of a man/maid-eating bear prowling the woodland spread, but the pastor holds a different view that he and Jussi embark to verify.
An Odd Beast
To Cook a Bear is a somewhat odd beast. It conjures a strong impression of the bleakness that lets distrust and prejudice and dark myths flourish based on local folklore that bears might be dominated or inhabited by the spirits of men. And it doesn’t romanticise the tough existence led by the residents, in which violence, be it from nature or people, always looms on the edges, waiting to erupt. Yet the personas seldom evolve beyond symbols – or perhaps, as the struggles amid fairness and revenge, logic and faith, virtue and wickedness escalate, emblematic figures within a moral tale – which stops the entire production fully becoming immersive.
Tonal Inconsistencies
And then, exist the many tonally jarring instances in which the clergyman’s skill to discover clues and discern Hilda’s fate turns nearly laughable. He positions himself looking at shattered containers and clumps of hair in hay barns like a combined Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (neither of whom had to lick a mixture of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to confirm that, yes, it was definitely dried blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and pulling a corpse from a bog.
Opposing Goals
The village elite are determined demonstrating that the maid met her end by a bear, perhaps to protect the calm, or possibly to shield one of their own. The clergyman is bent on establishing otherwise, and the proof so quickly accumulates supporting his view that again the show’s credibility and the viewer’s patience are tested. At its best, the series is reminiscent of the TV version a few years ago of the author’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the competing allures and fears offered by science and religion. At its worst, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Nevertheless, it appears to offer the answer to the earlier query: “Females, choose the animal.”
The series is on Disney+ currently.
