An intense discussion lately went viral on social media, following a user asked the question for females: would you rather be lost in a forest with a man or a bear? Similar to the most engaging thought experiments, it revealed wildly different perspectives and experiences, highlighted chasms between the sexes, and was likely cause a deep personal dilemma for anyone pondering on it for too long. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable coda where men of a certain stripe took to the internet to tell females how stupid they were for choosing the animal and proceeded to describe the consequences they deserved for that choice. This at least enabled those females who had been hesitating over their choice to decide with a new confidence.
Portraying the Scenario
The Bear-Cooking Tale skillfully dramatises this clever little setup. The six-part drama is based from Scandinavian writer Mikael Niemi’s 2018 novel with the identical title (translated two years later for an English audience). It traces the struggles of a clergyman (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his family when they arrive to start a new ministry within Kengis, an isolated settlement in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. Within a community with few pleasures, none of the inhabitants particularly warm to his puritanical stance on drinking and revelry, yet it is his protection of the poor – particularly the native Sami population, from which comes the pastor’s adopted son the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his conviction in social justice and equality that sets him on a collision course against the Kengis powers that be.
The Opposing Forces
Quickly collaborating opposing him include the sheriff the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating mill owner Madam Sjödahl (the actress), seen early on firing a recently mangled laborer with minimal compensation as he remains babbling at the sight of his pulped hand, and all others who benefit from a populace who can be bought for a few bottles of liquor sold by the creepy store owner Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes when itinerant painter Beronius appears in the story (Simon J Berger, delivering an acting turn of exceptional unsettling intensity). If they are – like the pastor himself – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, they still serve as potent archetypes.
Narrative Development
Once the foundations of conflict planted, it is time to proceed with the storyline. The servant employed by the doctor, Hilda (the actress), duly goes missing from the woods. Signs of her flight and bear markings upon a trunk get discovered but she is nowhere to be seen. Rumours and fears regarding a human-devouring bear roaming the woods spread, but the pastor holds a different view that he and Jussi set out to verify.
An Odd Beast
This Bear Drama is a slightly odd beast. It conjures a strong impression of the bleakness that allows suspicion and bias and dark myths thrive based on local folklore that animals might be dominated or inhabited by the souls of men. And it doesn’t romanticise the tough existence experienced by the villagers, in which violence, whether that of nature or people, lurks constantly at the periphery, waiting to erupt. Yet the personas seldom evolve more than ciphers – or perhaps, while the conflicts amid fairness and vengeance, logic and religion, good and evil intensify, representative characters in a fable – preventing the whole thing fully coming to life.
Stylistic Shifts
And then, exist numerous stylistically clashing instances in which the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and discern the maid’s destiny becomes nearly laughable. He positions himself observing broken milk pots and strands of fur within storage sheds like a combined Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (none of whom had to lick a mixture of blood droplets and saliva from his superior to agree that indeed, it was clearly coagulated blood at the crime scene), before announcing his newest conclusion and extracting a body from a bog.
Clashing Agendas
The village elite are bent on demonstrating that Hilda was killed by a bear, maybe to protect the calm, perhaps to protect one of their own. The clergyman is intent on proving the opposite, and the evidence so quickly stacks up supporting his view that again the drama’s plausibility and the viewer’s patience get strained. In its finest moments, the series evokes memories of the TV version a few years ago of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the competing attractions and terrors offered by rational thought and belief. In its low points, it resembles a bear-themed police procedural. Still, it appears to offer the response to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”
To Cook a Bear is on Disney+ now.
