A heated debate lately spread widely across online platforms, following someone asked the question to women: would you rather be lost in a forest alongside a male or a bear? Like all the best hypothetical scenarios, it revealed wildly different worldviews and life encounters, illuminated chasms between the sexes, and could easily to induce a deep personal dilemma for anyone pondering about it extensively. There was also the predictable follow-up in which some males came online to inform females how stupid they had been for choosing the animal and went on to limn the punishments they merited for that choice. This at least enabled those females who were uncertain over their choice to decide with renewed assurance.
Dramatising the Setup
The Bear-Cooking Tale skillfully brings to life this clever little setup. This six-episode series is based on Swedish author the novelist’s 2018 novel with the identical title (rendered two years later for an English audience). It traces the struggles of a clergyman (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his family as they come to start a fresh religious post in Kengis, a remote village in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. Within a community lacking many joys, not one of the inhabitants particularly appreciate his strict approach to alcohol and dancing, but it is his defense of impoverished people – particularly the native Sami population, from among whom hails the preacher’s foster child Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his conviction in social justice and equal rights 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 intimidating mill owner the matron Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed initially dismissing a newly injured laborer with minimal compensation while he is still babbling upon seeing his crushed hand, and all others who benefit from a community who can be bought for a few bottles of the whisky provided by the creepy shopkeeper the merchant Lindmark (the actor). Although, to be fair, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes once travelling artist the artist Beronius appears in the story (the performer, delivering an acting turn of rare unsettling intensity). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, they still serve as effective ones.
Narrative Development
With the seeds of conflict planted, the moment arrives to get down with the storyline. The maid from the doctor’s house, the character Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), duly vanishes in the forest. Signs of her flight and animal scratches upon a trunk are found but she is nowhere to be seen. Rumours and fears regarding a human-devouring bear roaming the woodland circulate, but the pastor holds a different view which he and his ward set out to verify.
A Strange Creation
To Cook a Bear is a slightly odd beast. It creates a strong impression of the bleakness that lets distrust and prejudice and grim legends flourish based on local folklore that bears can be controlled or inhabited by the souls of humans. And it doesn’t idealising the hardscrabble life experienced by the villagers, where violence, be it from the wild or people, lurks constantly at the periphery, poised to explode. Yet the personas rarely become more than ciphers – or maybe, as the struggles between justice and vengeance, logic and religion, good and wickedness escalate, representative characters within a moral tale – preventing the whole thing truly coming to life.
Stylistic Shifts
And then, exist the many tonally jarring instances where the pastor’s ability to discover clues and determine the maid’s destiny becomes nearly laughable. He stands observing broken milk pots and strands of fur in hay barns like a combined Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – with Jussi a rather hapless assistant figure (none of whom had to taste a blend of blood droplets and the boss’s spit to agree that indeed, it was definitely dried blood at the crime scene), before announcing his newest conclusion and extracting a body from a bog.
Opposing Goals
The local leaders are determined proving that Hilda was killed by a bear, perhaps to preserve the peace, perhaps to protect one of their own. The pastor 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 is reminiscent of the TV version some years back of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the opposing allures and terrors presented by rational thought and belief. In its low points, it resembles a bear-themed police procedural. Nevertheless, it appears to provide the response to that debated question: “Females, choose the animal.”
The series is on Disney+ now.
