A intense debate recently spread widely across online platforms, following a user posed a query for females: would you rather find yourself stranded in a forest with a man or with a bear? Similar to the most engaging hypothetical scenarios, it revealed vastly opposing worldviews and life encounters, illuminated chasms among genders, and was likely cause an existential crisis for anyone pondering on it extensively. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable follow-up where some males took to the internet to inform females how stupid they were to select the animal and proceeded to limn the consequences they deserved for it. This at minimum enabled those females who were uncertain over their choice to make it with renewed assurance.
Dramatising the Setup
The Bear-Cooking Tale skillfully brings to life this clever little setup. The six-part drama is based on Scandinavian writer Mikael Niemi’s 2018 book of the same name (translated in 2020 for an English audience). It follows the struggles of a clergyman (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his family when they arrive to start a fresh religious post within Kengis, an isolated village in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. Within a community lacking many joys, not one of the inhabitants particularly warm to his puritanical approach to drinking and dancing, but it is his protection of the poor – especially the native Sami population, from among whom hails the preacher’s adopted son Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his belief in societal fairness and equality that places him on a collision course against the Kengis powers that be.
The Antagonists
Soon collaborating opposing him include the sheriff the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the fearsome factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen initially dismissing a recently mangled laborer with a month’s pay as he remains babbling at the sight his crushed hand, and anyone else who benefit from a populace who can be bought for a few bottles of liquor provided by the unsettling shopkeeper the merchant Lindmark (the actor). However, to be fair, Lindmark’s eeriness pales when travelling artist the artist Beronius appears in the story (the performer, delivering a performance of rare unsettling intensity). If they are – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond than caricatures, they are at least potent archetypes.
Plot Progression
With the seeds of tension sown, it is time to get down to narrative business. The maid employed by the doctor, Hilda (the actress), duly goes missing from the woods. Indications of her escape and animal scratches on a tree get discovered but she is nowhere to be seen. Gossip and fears of a man/maid-eating beast prowling the woodland circulate, but the pastor has another theory that he and Jussi embark to verify.
An Odd Beast
To Cook a Bear is a somewhat peculiar show. It creates a strong impression of the desolation that allows suspicion and bias and dark myths thrive from the native legend that animals can be controlled or inhabited by the souls of men. And it doesn’t idealising the tough existence experienced by the residents, in which brutality, be it from the wild or people, lurks constantly at the periphery, waiting to erupt. But the characters rarely become beyond symbols – or maybe, as the struggles between justice and vengeance, rationality and religion, good and evil intensify, emblematic figures within a moral tale – which stops the entire production fully coming to life.
Tonal Inconsistencies
And then, exist numerous tonally jarring moments in which the clergyman’s skill to discover clues and determine Hilda’s fate turns nearly laughable. He positions himself looking at shattered containers and clumps of hair within storage sheds as a fusion of the Belgian detective the English sleuth – with Jussi a rather hapless assistant figure (neither of whom had to taste a mixture of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to confirm that indeed, it was clearly dried blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and pulling a body out of a swamp.
Opposing Goals
The village elite are bent on proving that the maid met her end by a bear, perhaps to protect the calm, perhaps to protect one of their own. The clergyman is intent on proving otherwise, and the proof so quickly stacks up in his favour that again the show’s credibility and audience tolerance get strained. At its best, To Cook a Bear is reminiscent of the adaptation a few years ago of the author’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the opposing allures and fears offered by rational thought and religion. In its low points, it resembles a bear-themed police procedural. Nevertheless, it does seem to offer the answer to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”
The series streams on Disney+ currently.
