An heated discussion recently went viral on social media, following someone asked a query to women: would you rather be lost in a forest alongside a male or a bear? Similar to the most engaging hypothetical scenarios, it revealed vastly opposing worldviews and life encounters, 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 came online to tell women how foolish they were to select the bear and went on to limn the punishments they deserved for that choice. This at minimum enabled those females who had been hesitating over their choice to make it with a new confidence.
Portraying the Scenario
The Bear-Cooking Tale effectively brings to life this clever little setup. This six-episode drama is adapted from Scandinavian writer Mikael Niemi’s 2018 book with the identical title (rendered two years later for English readers). It follows the tribulations of a pastor (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his family as they come to begin a fresh religious post within Kengis, an isolated settlement in Sweden’s north, during the mid-19th century. Within a community lacking many joys, not one of the inhabitants especially warm to his puritanical approach to alcohol and dancing, but it is his defense of the poor – especially the native Sami population, from which comes the preacher’s adopted son the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in social justice and equal rights that places him on a collision course against the Kengis local authorities.
The Opposing Forces
Soon in cahoots opposing him include the lawman the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the fearsome factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed early on firing a recently mangled worker with a month’s pay as he remains gibbering at the sight of his pulped hand, and all others who benefit from a populace who can be bought for a few bottles of the whisky provided by the unsettling shopkeeper the merchant Lindmark (the actor). Although, to be fair, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes once travelling artist Beronius arrives on the scene (Simon J Berger, delivering an acting turn of exceptional discomfiting power). If they are – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, they are at least effective ones.
Plot Progression
With the seeds of tension planted, it is time to get down to narrative business. The servant employed by the doctor, Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), accordingly vanishes from the woods. Indications of her flight and animal scratches upon a trunk get discovered yet she remains nowhere to be seen. Rumours and fears regarding a human-devouring bear prowling the woodland spread, yet the clergyman holds a different view which he and his ward embark to prove.
An Odd Beast
To Cook a Bear is a somewhat peculiar show. It conjures a fine sense of the desolation that allows distrust and prejudice and dark myths thrive from the native legend that bears might be dominated or possessed by the spirits of men. It avoids idealising the hardscrabble life experienced by the villagers, in which brutality, whether that of the wild or mankind, lurks constantly on the edges, waiting to erupt. Yet the personas rarely become more than ciphers – or maybe, while the conflicts between justice and vengeance, rationality and faith, virtue and evil intensify, representative characters in a fable – which stops the entire production truly coming to life.
Tonal Inconsistencies
Additionally, there are the many tonally jarring moments where the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and discern the maid’s destiny turns nearly laughable. He stands looking at shattered containers and clumps of hair within storage sheds like a combined Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (neither of whom were required to lick a blend of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to confirm that, yes, it was clearly coagulated blood on the site), prior to declaring his latest deduction and pulling a body from a bog.
Clashing Agendas
The village elite are bent on proving that the maid was killed by an animal, maybe to protect the peace, perhaps to protect one of their own. The clergyman is intent on establishing the opposite, and the evidence so quickly stacks up supporting his view that again the show’s credibility and the viewer’s patience get strained. At its best, To Cook a Bear is reminiscent of the TV version some years back of Sarah Perry’s The Essex Serpent, through its portrayal of the opposing allures and terrors offered by science and religion. At its worst, it’s more like a bear-themed police procedural. Still, it does seem to provide the response to the earlier query: “Females, choose the animal.”
To Cook a Bear is on Disney+ now.
