A heated discussion recently went viral on social media, following someone asked a query to women: would you rather be lost in the woods alongside a male or with a bear? Like all the most engaging hypothetical scenarios, it revealed vastly opposing worldviews and experiences, highlighted divides between the sexes, and could easily to induce a deep personal dilemma for anyone pondering on it extensively. There was also the almost inevitable coda in which some males took to the internet to inform women how stupid they had been to select the bear and proceeded to describe the consequences they deserved for that choice. This at minimum allowed those females who were uncertain over their choice to decide with a new confidence.
Dramatising the Setup
The Bear-Cooking Tale effectively brings to life this nifty small premise. This six-episode drama is based from Scandinavian writer the novelist’s 2018 book with the identical title (rendered two years later for an English audience). It traces the tribulations of a pastor (the lead actor) and his family when they arrive to start a fresh religious post within Kengis, a remote village in Sweden’s north, during the mid-19th century. In a place lacking many joys, none of the locals especially appreciate his puritanical approach to alcohol and dancing, yet it is his defense of impoverished people – especially the indigenous Sami, from among whom hails the preacher’s foster child Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his conviction in social justice and equality that places him in direct opposition with the Kengis local authorities.
The Antagonists
Quickly in cahoots against him include the lawman Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (the actress), observed initially firing a newly injured worker with a month’s pay as he remains babbling upon seeing his crushed hand, and all others who profit from a populace who can be bought with some containers of liquor sold by the creepy store owner Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). However, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness pales when itinerant painter the artist Beronius arrives in the story (the performer, providing a performance of rare discomfiting power). While they remain – like the pastor himself – only a little more being stereotypes, they are at least effective ones.
Plot Progression
Once the foundations of conflict sown, the moment arrives to proceed with the storyline. The maid from the doctor’s house, Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), duly goes missing in the forest. Indications of her escape and bear markings upon a trunk get discovered but she is completely absent. Rumours and anxieties of a man/maid-eating beast prowling the woods spread, yet the clergyman holds a different view which he and his ward set out to verify.
An Odd Beast
To Cook a Bear is a slightly odd beast. It creates a strong impression of the desolation that lets suspicion and bias and grim legends flourish based on local folklore that animals might be dominated or inhabited by the souls of humans. And it doesn’t romanticise the hardscrabble life experienced by the villagers, where violence, whether that of the wild or mankind, always looms on the edges, waiting to erupt. But the characters rarely become beyond symbols – or perhaps, as the struggles amid fairness and revenge, rationality and religion, virtue and evil escalate, representative characters in a fable – preventing the whole thing truly coming to life.
Stylistic Shifts
And then, there are numerous stylistically clashing moments in which the clergyman’s skill to discover clues and determine Hilda’s fate becomes nearly laughable. He stands observing broken milk pots and strands of fur in hay barns as a fusion of Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – alongside Jussi a rather hapless assistant figure (none of whom were required to taste a blend of blood droplets and saliva from his superior to confirm that, yes, it was clearly coagulated blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his latest deduction and pulling a corpse from a bog.
Opposing Goals
The village elite are bent on demonstrating that Hilda met her end by a bear, perhaps to protect the calm, or possibly to shield a fellow elite. The pastor is bent on proving otherwise, and the evidence so rapidly accumulates in his favour that once more the drama’s plausibility and the viewer’s patience get strained. At its best, the series evokes memories of the TV version some years back of the author’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the competing attractions and terrors presented by rational thought and religion. In its low points, it’s more like Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it appears to offer the answer to the earlier query: “Females, choose the animal.”
To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ currently.
