An heated debate recently spread widely on social media, after a user asked the question for females: which would you prefer find yourself stranded in the woods alongside a male or with a bear? Similar to the most engaging thought experiments, it exposed wildly different perspectives and experiences, highlighted divides among genders, and was likely cause a deep personal dilemma if you thought about it for too long. Additionally, there came the predictable coda where men of a certain stripe came online to tell women how foolish they had been to select the animal and proceeded to limn the punishments they deserved for it. This at minimum enabled the women who had been hesitating about their decision to make it with a new confidence.
Dramatising the Scenario
The Bear-Cooking Tale skillfully brings to life this clever small premise. This six-episode series is based from Scandinavian writer Mikael Niemi’s 2018 book of the same name (rendered in 2020 for an English audience). It follows the tribulations of a pastor (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his household as they come to start a new ministry within Kengis, an isolated village in Sweden’s north, in 1852. Within a community lacking many joys, not one of the inhabitants especially warm to his puritanical stance on drinking and revelry, but it is his protection of impoverished people – particularly the indigenous Sami, from among whom hails the pastor’s foster child the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his conviction in societal fairness and equality that sets him on a collision course with the Kengis local authorities.
The Antagonists
Soon collaborating against him are the lawman Brahe (the performer), the intimidating mill owner the matron Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen early on firing a recently mangled laborer with minimal compensation while he is still gibbering at the sight of his pulped hand, and all others who benefit from a community easily swayed for a few bottles of the whisky sold by the unsettling shopkeeper Lindmark (the actor). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes once itinerant painter the artist Beronius arrives on the scene (Simon J Berger, delivering a performance of rare discomfiting power). If they are – like the pastor himself – only a little more being stereotypes, they still serve as potent archetypes.
Narrative Development
With the seeds of conflict sown, the moment arrives to get down with the storyline. The maid from the doctor’s house, Hilda (the actress), duly vanishes from the woods. Indications of her flight and animal scratches on a tree are found but she is nowhere to be seen. Gossip and anxieties of a man/maid-eating bear roaming the woodland spread, but the pastor holds a different view that he and Jussi embark to verify.
An Odd Beast
To Cook a Bear is a slightly peculiar show. It creates a fine sense of the desolation that lets suspicion and prejudice and dark myths thrive based on local folklore that bears can be controlled or possessed by the souls of humans. It avoids idealising the tough existence led by the residents, where violence, whether that of nature or mankind, lurks constantly on the edges, poised to explode. But the characters seldom evolve more than ciphers – or perhaps, while the conflicts between justice and revenge, rationality and religion, virtue and evil escalate, emblematic figures within a moral tale – which stops the whole thing truly becoming immersive.
Stylistic Shifts
Additionally, there are the many stylistically clashing instances where the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and discern the maid’s destiny turns nearly laughable. He stands observing broken milk pots and clumps of hair within storage sheds like a combined Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (none of whom were required to taste a blend of blood droplets and saliva from his superior to confirm that indeed, it was clearly coagulated blood on the site), before announcing his newest conclusion and pulling a body out of a swamp.
Opposing Goals
The local leaders are determined demonstrating that the maid met her end by a bear, perhaps to protect the peace, or possibly to shield a fellow elite. The pastor is intent on proving the opposite, and the proof so quickly accumulates in his favour that once more the drama’s plausibility and audience tolerance get strained. At its best, To Cook a Bear evokes memories of the adaptation some years back of the author’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the competing allures and fears presented by science and religion. In its low points, it’s more like Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Nevertheless, it appears to provide the answer to that debated question: “Females, choose the animal.”
To Cook a Bear is on Disney+ now.
