A heated debate recently went viral on social media, after a user asked the question to women: which would you prefer find yourself stranded in a forest alongside a male or a bear? Similar to the best thought experiments, it exposed wildly different worldviews and experiences, highlighted chasms between the sexes, and was likely to induce an existential crisis if you thought about it for too long. There was also the almost inevitable follow-up in which some males took to the internet to inform females how foolish they had been to select the animal and proceeded to describe the consequences they deserved for that choice. This at least enabled those females who were uncertain about their decision to make it with renewed assurance.
Dramatising the Setup
The Bear-Cooking Tale effectively brings to life this clever little setup. This six-episode series is adapted from Scandinavian writer the novelist’s 2018 book of the same name (rendered in 2020 for an English audience). It follows the struggles of a clergyman (the lead actor) and his family when they arrive to begin a fresh religious post in Kengis, an isolated settlement in northern Sweden, in 1852. Within a community lacking many joys, not one of the locals especially appreciate his puritanical stance on alcohol and dancing, but it is his defense of the poor – particularly the indigenous Sami, from among whom hails the pastor’s foster child the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in social justice and equal rights that places him on a collision course against the Kengis powers that be.
The Opposing Forces
Soon in cahoots opposing him include the lawman the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the fearsome mill owner Madam Sjödahl (the actress), seen early on firing a newly injured worker with a month’s pay while he is still gibbering at the sight of his pulped hand, and anyone else who benefit from a community easily swayed with some containers of liquor sold by the unsettling shopkeeper the merchant Lindmark (the actor). Although, to be fair, Lindmark’s eeriness pales once travelling artist Beronius appears in the story (Simon J Berger, providing an acting turn of exceptional discomfiting power). If they are – like the pastor himself – only a little more being stereotypes, they are at least effective ones.
Narrative Development
Once the foundations of conflict planted, the moment arrives to get down to narrative business. The servant from the doctor’s house, the character Hilda (the actress), duly vanishes from the woods. Signs of her flight and animal scratches on a tree are found but she is completely absent. Rumours and fears of a man/maid-eating beast roaming the woodland 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 peculiar show. It creates a fine sense of the desolation that lets distrust and prejudice and grim legends thrive from the native legend that animals might be dominated or inhabited by the spirits of men. It avoids idealising the hardscrabble life led by the villagers, where violence, be it from nature or people, lurks constantly at the periphery, waiting to erupt. But the characters rarely become beyond symbols – or perhaps, while the conflicts between justice and vengeance, rationality and faith, good and wickedness escalate, representative characters in a fable – which stops the whole thing fully becoming immersive.
Stylistic Shifts
And then, exist numerous stylistically clashing moments in which the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and discern Hilda’s fate turns nearly laughable. He stands looking at shattered containers and strands of fur within storage sheds like a combined the Belgian detective and Sherlock Holmes – with Jussi a rather hapless assistant figure (neither of whom were required to lick a blend of blood droplets and the boss’s spit to agree that, yes, it was definitely dried blood on the site), before announcing his latest deduction and extracting a corpse out of a swamp.
Opposing Goals
The village elite are determined proving that Hilda was killed by a bear, maybe to protect the peace, or possibly to protect a fellow elite. The clergyman is bent on establishing otherwise, and the evidence so rapidly stacks up in his favour that again the show’s credibility and the viewer’s patience get strained. In its finest moments, the series evokes memories of the TV version a few years ago of the author’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the opposing attractions and fears offered by science and belief. In its low points, it’s more like Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it appears to provide the response to the earlier query: “Females, choose the animal.”
To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ now.
