An intense debate lately spread widely on social media, following a user asked the question to women: would you rather be lost in a forest with a man or a bear? Similar to the most engaging hypothetical scenarios, it exposed wildly different worldviews and life encounters, highlighted chasms among genders, and was likely cause a deep personal dilemma for anyone pondering on it extensively. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable coda in which men of a certain stripe took to the internet to tell women how stupid they had been for choosing the animal and proceeded to limn the consequences they deserved for that choice. This at least allowed the women who had been hesitating about their decision to make it with a new confidence.
Portraying the Setup
The Bear-Cooking Tale skillfully brings to life this clever little setup. This six-episode drama is based from Scandinavian writer Mikael Niemi’s 2018 book with the identical title (translated 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, a remote settlement in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. Within a community lacking many joys, none of the inhabitants especially appreciate his puritanical stance on drinking and dancing, but it is his protection of impoverished people – particularly the native Sami population, from which comes the preacher’s adopted son the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his conviction in societal fairness and equality that places him on a collision course with the Kengis powers that be.
The Opposing Forces
Quickly collaborating opposing him are the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the fearsome mill owner Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen early on firing a newly injured laborer with minimal compensation as he remains gibbering upon seeing of his pulped hand, and all others who benefit from a populace easily swayed for a few bottles of liquor provided by the creepy shopkeeper the merchant Lindmark (the actor). Although, to be fair, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes when itinerant painter Beronius arrives in the story (Simon J Berger, delivering an acting turn of rare discomfiting power). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, 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, Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), accordingly goes missing in the forest. Signs of her flight and bear markings upon a trunk get discovered but she is nowhere to be seen. Rumours and fears regarding a human-devouring beast roaming the woods circulate, yet the clergyman has another theory that he and Jussi embark to verify.
A Strange Creation
To Cook a Bear is a somewhat peculiar show. It creates a strong impression of the bleakness that lets suspicion and bias and dark myths flourish based on local folklore that animals might be dominated or inhabited by the souls of men. And it doesn’t idealising the tough existence led by the villagers, where violence, whether that of nature or mankind, always looms on the edges, waiting to erupt. But the characters seldom evolve beyond symbols – or maybe, while the conflicts amid fairness and vengeance, rationality and religion, virtue and evil intensify, emblematic figures in a fable – which stops the whole thing truly coming to life.
Stylistic Shifts
Additionally, exist numerous stylistically clashing moments where the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and discern Hilda’s fate becomes nearly laughable. He stands looking at broken milk pots and strands of fur in hay barns as a fusion of Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – with Jussi a rather hapless assistant figure (none of whom had to taste a mixture of blood droplets and saliva from his superior to confirm that, yes, it was definitely dried blood on the site), before announcing his latest deduction and pulling a body from a bog.
Opposing Goals
The local leaders are bent on proving that Hilda was killed by a bear, perhaps to preserve the peace, perhaps to shield a fellow elite. The pastor is bent on proving the opposite, and the evidence so quickly accumulates in his favour that again the show’s credibility and the viewer’s patience get strained. At its best, To Cook a Bear evokes memories of the adaptation a few years ago of the author’s The Essex Serpent, through its portrayal of the competing allures and terrors offered by science and belief. At its worst, it resembles a bear-themed police procedural. Still, it does seem to offer the response to that debated question: “Females, choose the animal.”
The series streams on Disney+ now.
