An heated debate recently spread widely 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 best hypothetical scenarios, it exposed wildly different perspectives and experiences, highlighted chasms between the sexes, and could easily to induce an existential crisis for anyone pondering on it for too long. There was also the almost inevitable coda where some males took to the internet to tell women how foolish they had been to select the animal and proceeded to limn the consequences they merited for that choice. This at least enabled those females who were uncertain over their choice to decide with a new confidence.
Dramatising the Setup
The Bear-Cooking Tale effectively dramatises this clever small premise. The six-part drama is based from Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s 2018 novel with the identical title (translated in 2020 for English readers). It traces the struggles of a clergyman (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his family as they come to start a fresh religious post in Kengis, an isolated village in northern Sweden, in 1852. In a place with few pleasures, none of the locals especially appreciate his puritanical approach to drinking and revelry, yet it is his defense of the poor – particularly the indigenous Sami, from among whom comes the preacher’s foster child the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his belief in social justice and equality that sets him on a collision course against the Kengis local authorities.
The Antagonists
Quickly in cahoots against him are the lawman Brahe (the performer), the intimidating factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed initially dismissing a recently mangled laborer with minimal compensation while he is still gibbering upon seeing his crushed hand, and all others who benefit from a populace easily swayed with some containers of the whisky provided by the unsettling store owner the merchant Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness pales once travelling artist the artist Beronius appears in the story (Simon J Berger, delivering an acting turn of rare unsettling intensity). If they are – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, they still serve as effective ones.
Plot Progression
Once the foundations of tension sown, it is time to get down with the storyline. The maid from the doctor’s house, Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), accordingly vanishes in the forest. Signs of her flight and bear markings upon a trunk are found yet she remains completely absent. Rumours and fears of a man/maid-eating bear prowling the woodland spread, but the pastor has another theory that he and Jussi set out to prove.
A Strange Creation
To Cook a Bear is a somewhat peculiar show. It creates a strong impression of the desolation that allows suspicion and bias and grim legends thrive based on local folklore that animals might be dominated or inhabited by the spirits of humans. It avoids idealising the tough existence experienced by the villagers, where violence, be it from the wild or people, lurks constantly on the edges, waiting to erupt. Yet the personas rarely become beyond symbols – or perhaps, while the conflicts amid fairness and revenge, rationality and faith, virtue and evil intensify, representative characters in a fable – which stops the whole thing truly coming to life.
Stylistic Shifts
Additionally, there are the many tonally jarring moments in which the clergyman’s skill to discover clues and determine Hilda’s fate becomes almost risible. He positions himself looking at broken milk pots and strands of fur within storage sheds as a fusion of the Belgian detective the English sleuth – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (neither of whom had to taste a blend of blood droplets and saliva from his superior to agree that, yes, it was clearly dried blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his latest deduction and extracting a corpse from a bog.
Opposing Goals
The village elite are determined demonstrating that Hilda was killed by a bear, maybe to protect the calm, or possibly to shield a fellow elite. The clergyman is bent on proving otherwise, and the evidence so quickly accumulates supporting his view that again the show’s credibility 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, through its portrayal of the opposing attractions and fears offered by science and religion. In its low points, it resembles a bear-themed police procedural. Still, it appears to provide the answer to that debated question: “Females, choose the animal.”
The series is on Disney+ currently.
