An heated debate lately went viral on social media, following someone asked the question for females: would you rather be lost in a forest alongside a male or a bear? Similar to the most engaging thought experiments, it exposed wildly different perspectives and life encounters, illuminated divides among genders, and could easily to induce a deep personal dilemma if you thought about it extensively. Additionally, there came the predictable coda where some males came online to inform females how stupid they had been for choosing the animal and proceeded to limn the punishments they merited for that choice. This at minimum enabled the women who had been hesitating over their choice to decide with a new confidence.
Portraying the Setup
The Bear-Cooking Tale skillfully brings to life this clever little setup. The six-part drama is adapted from Scandinavian writer Mikael Niemi’s 2018 book of the same name (rendered in 2020 for English readers). It traces the tribulations of a pastor (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his family as they come to start a new ministry in Kengis, an isolated settlement in northern Sweden, in 1852. In a place lacking many joys, not one of the inhabitants especially warm to his puritanical stance on drinking and dancing, but it is his defense of impoverished people – particularly the indigenous Sami, from among whom hails the preacher’s adopted son the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his conviction in social justice and equality that places him in direct opposition with the Kengis local authorities.
The Opposing Forces
Soon collaborating opposing him include the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the fearsome mill owner the matron Sjödahl (the actress), observed early on firing a recently mangled laborer with a month’s pay while he is still gibbering upon seeing his crushed hand, and anyone else who benefit from a populace easily swayed for a few bottles of liquor provided by the unsettling shopkeeper Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes when travelling artist Beronius appears on the scene (Simon J Berger, providing a performance of rare unsettling intensity). If they are – similar to the clergyman – only a little more being stereotypes, they are at least potent archetypes.
Narrative Development
Once the foundations of tension sown, the moment arrives to proceed with the storyline. The servant employed by the doctor, Hilda (the actress), accordingly vanishes from the woods. Signs of her escape and animal scratches upon a trunk are found but she is completely absent. Gossip and fears regarding a human-devouring beast roaming the woods circulate, yet the clergyman holds a different view which he and his ward set out to prove.
A Strange Creation
To Cook a Bear is a slightly peculiar show. It conjures a fine sense of the bleakness that allows suspicion and prejudice and dark myths flourish from the native legend that bears might be dominated or possessed by the souls of men. It avoids idealising the hardscrabble life led by the villagers, where violence, whether that of nature or people, lurks constantly at the periphery, poised to explode. Yet the personas seldom evolve more than ciphers – or maybe, as the struggles amid fairness and revenge, logic and religion, virtue and evil escalate, representative characters in a fable – which stops the entire production fully becoming immersive.
Tonal Inconsistencies
Additionally, there are the many tonally jarring instances in which the pastor’s ability to discover clues and discern the maid’s destiny turns almost risible. He positions himself looking at broken milk pots and strands of fur in hay barns as a fusion of the Belgian detective the English sleuth – with Jussi a rather hapless Hastings-cum-Watson (none of whom had to taste a blend of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to agree that indeed, it was clearly coagulated blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and pulling a corpse from a bog.
Opposing Goals
The local leaders are determined proving that Hilda was killed by an animal, perhaps to protect the peace, or possibly to protect one of their own. The pastor is intent on establishing the opposite, and the evidence so quickly accumulates in his favour that again the show’s credibility and the viewer’s patience are tested. In its finest moments, the series is reminiscent of the adaptation a few years ago of Sarah Perry’s The Essex Serpent, with its evocation of the opposing allures and terrors offered by science and religion. In its low points, it’s more like Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it appears to provide the response to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”
To Cook a Bear is on Disney+ currently.
