A heated debate recently spread widely on social media, after someone asked the question for females: which would you prefer find yourself stranded in the woods alongside a male or with a bear? Like all the most engaging hypothetical scenarios, it exposed vastly opposing perspectives and experiences, highlighted divides between the sexes, and was likely to induce an existential crisis if you thought on it for too long. Additionally, there came the predictable coda in which some males took to the internet to inform females how foolish they were for choosing the bear and proceeded to describe the punishments they deserved for it. This at minimum enabled the women 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 little setup. The six-part series is based from Scandinavian writer the novelist’s 2018 book of the same name (translated in 2020 for English readers). It follows the tribulations of a pastor (the lead actor) and his household when they arrive to begin a new ministry within Kengis, an isolated village in Sweden’s north, in 1852. Within a community lacking many joys, none of the inhabitants particularly appreciate his puritanical stance on alcohol and dancing, yet it is his defense of impoverished people – especially the native Sami population, from which hails the preacher’s adopted son Jussi (the young actor) – and his conviction in social justice and equality that sets him in direct opposition against the Kengis powers that be.
The Antagonists
Quickly in cahoots opposing him are the sheriff the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed early on firing a recently mangled worker with minimal compensation as he remains gibbering at the sight his crushed hand, and anyone else who benefit from a community easily swayed with some containers of the whisky provided by the creepy shopkeeper Lindmark (the actor). However, to be fair, Lindmark’s eeriness pales once travelling artist Beronius arrives on the scene (the performer, providing a performance of rare unsettling intensity). If they are – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond than caricatures, they still serve as potent archetypes.
Plot Progression
With the seeds of conflict sown, it is time to proceed to narrative business. The servant from the doctor’s house, the character Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), duly goes missing in the forest. Signs of her escape and animal scratches upon a trunk are found but she is nowhere to be seen. Rumours and fears regarding a human-devouring bear prowling the woodland circulate, yet the clergyman has another theory which he and his ward set out to prove.
An Odd Beast
To Cook a Bear is a somewhat odd beast. It creates a strong impression of the desolation that allows suspicion and prejudice and grim legends thrive based on local folklore that animals can be controlled or inhabited by the spirits of men. And it doesn’t romanticise the tough existence experienced by the villagers, where brutality, whether that of the wild or mankind, lurks constantly on the edges, waiting to erupt. But the characters rarely become beyond symbols – or perhaps, as the struggles between justice and revenge, rationality and religion, virtue and wickedness intensify, emblematic figures within a moral tale – preventing the whole thing truly becoming immersive.
Tonal Inconsistencies
And then, exist numerous tonally jarring instances where the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and discern Hilda’s fate turns almost risible. 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 Hastings-cum-Watson (none of whom were required to taste a blend of blood droplets and the boss’s spit to confirm that, yes, it was definitely coagulated blood at the crime scene), before announcing his newest conclusion and pulling a corpse from a bog.
Opposing Goals
The local leaders are determined demonstrating that the maid met her end by an animal, maybe to protect the calm, or possibly to protect a fellow elite. The pastor is intent on establishing the opposite, and the evidence so quickly accumulates supporting his view that once more the drama’s plausibility and the viewer’s patience are tested. In its finest moments, the series is reminiscent of the TV version a few years ago of the author’s The Essex Serpent, with its evocation of the competing attractions and terrors presented by science and religion. At its worst, it’s more like a bear-themed police procedural. Still, it does seem to offer the answer to that debated question: “Ladies, take the bear.”
The series streams on Disney+ now.
