An intense debate lately spread widely on social media, following a user asked a query for females: would you rather be lost in the woods with a man or a bear? Like all the best hypothetical scenarios, it exposed wildly different perspectives and life encounters, highlighted chasms between the sexes, and was likely cause an existential crisis for anyone pondering on it extensively. There was also the almost inevitable follow-up where some males came online to inform females how foolish they were for choosing the animal and proceeded to limn the punishments they merited for it. This at minimum enabled the women who were uncertain about their decision to make it with a new confidence.
Portraying the Scenario
The Bear-Cooking Tale effectively brings to life this nifty little setup. The six-part series is based on Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s 2018 novel of the same name (translated in 2020 for English readers). It traces the struggles of a clergyman (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his family when they arrive to start a fresh religious post in Kengis, a remote settlement in Sweden’s north, during the mid-19th century. In a place lacking many joys, none of the locals particularly appreciate his strict approach to alcohol and revelry, but it is his protection of impoverished people – particularly the indigenous Sami, from which hails the pastor’s adopted son Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in social justice and equality that places him on a collision course with the Kengis local authorities.
The Antagonists
Soon in cahoots against him are the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the intimidating factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (the actress), observed early on firing a newly injured laborer with a month’s pay as he remains babbling upon seeing his crushed hand, and anyone else who benefit from a populace easily swayed for a few bottles of the whisky provided by the unsettling shopkeeper Lindmark (the actor). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness pales once travelling artist Beronius arrives in the story (Simon J Berger, delivering an acting turn of exceptional discomfiting power). While they remain – like the pastor himself – just slightly beyond than caricatures, they still serve as effective ones.
Narrative Development
With the seeds of tension sown, it is time to get down to narrative business. The servant employed by the doctor, the character Hilda (the actress), accordingly vanishes from the woods. Signs of her escape and bear markings on a tree 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 verify.
A Strange Creation
To Cook a Bear is a somewhat peculiar show. It creates a strong impression of the bleakness that lets distrust and bias and grim legends thrive from the native legend that animals might be dominated or inhabited by the souls of humans. It avoids idealising the hardscrabble life experienced by the villagers, in which violence, be it from nature or people, always looms on the edges, waiting to erupt. Yet the personas rarely become beyond symbols – or maybe, as the struggles amid fairness and vengeance, rationality and religion, good and wickedness intensify, representative characters within a moral tale – which stops the entire production truly becoming immersive.
Tonal Inconsistencies
And then, there are numerous stylistically clashing moments in which the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and discern Hilda’s fate becomes nearly laughable. He positions himself looking at broken milk pots and strands of fur within storage sheds like a combined the Belgian detective and Sherlock Holmes – alongside Jussi a rather hapless Hastings-cum-Watson (neither of whom were required to lick a mixture of blood droplets and the boss’s spit to agree that indeed, it was definitely coagulated blood on the site), before announcing his newest conclusion and pulling a body out of a swamp.
Clashing Agendas
The village elite are determined proving that Hilda met her end by a bear, maybe to preserve the calm, or possibly to protect one of their own. The clergyman is intent on establishing otherwise, and the proof so quickly stacks up in his favour that again the drama’s plausibility and the viewer’s patience get strained. In its finest moments, To Cook a Bear is reminiscent of the TV version a few years ago of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the competing allures and terrors presented by rational thought and belief. In its low points, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it does seem to provide the response to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”
The series streams on Disney+ currently.
