A intense debate lately went viral on social media, after a user posed a query to women: which would you prefer find yourself stranded in the woods alongside a male or with a bear? Similar to the best hypothetical scenarios, it revealed vastly opposing perspectives and life encounters, highlighted divides between the sexes, and could easily cause an existential crisis for anyone pondering about it extensively. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable follow-up where some males took to the internet to inform women how foolish they had been for choosing the bear and went on to describe the consequences they merited for that choice. This at least enabled the women who had been hesitating over their choice to make it with a new confidence.
Portraying the Setup
The Bear-Cooking Tale skillfully dramatises this nifty little setup. The six-part series is adapted on Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s 2018 book of the same name (translated two years later for an English audience). It follows the tribulations of a clergyman (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his family when they arrive to start a new ministry within Kengis, an isolated village in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. In a place lacking many joys, not one of the inhabitants particularly warm to his strict stance on alcohol and revelry, yet it is his defense of impoverished people – especially the native Sami population, from among whom hails the pastor’s foster child the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his conviction in social justice and equality that sets him on a collision course against the Kengis powers that be.
The Antagonists
Quickly in cahoots opposing him are the lawman the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the intimidating factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (the actress), seen early on firing a recently mangled laborer with a month’s pay as he remains babbling at the sight of his pulped 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 (Jonas Karlsson). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes when travelling artist the artist Beronius arrives in the story (Simon J Berger, providing an acting turn of exceptional discomfiting power). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, they still serve as potent archetypes.
Plot Progression
Once the foundations of tension sown, the moment arrives to proceed with the storyline. The maid from the doctor’s house, Hilda (the actress), duly vanishes from the woods. Indications of her escape and animal scratches on a tree are found but she is nowhere to be seen. Rumours and anxieties of a man/maid-eating bear roaming the woods circulate, yet the clergyman holds a different view which he and his ward set out to prove.
An Odd Beast
This Bear Drama is a somewhat odd beast. It conjures a strong impression of the desolation that lets suspicion and bias and dark myths thrive based on local folklore that animals might be dominated or inhabited by the souls of humans. It avoids romanticise the hardscrabble life led by the residents, in which brutality, whether that of nature or mankind, lurks constantly on the edges, waiting to erupt. But the characters seldom evolve beyond symbols – or maybe, as the struggles between justice and vengeance, rationality and religion, virtue and evil intensify, representative characters in a fable – which stops the whole thing truly becoming immersive.
Tonal Inconsistencies
And then, there are numerous stylistically clashing instances in which the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and discern the maid’s destiny turns almost risible. He positions himself observing shattered containers and clumps of hair in hay barns as a fusion of Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – with Jussi a rather hapless Hastings-cum-Watson (none of whom were required to taste a mixture of blood spatter and the boss’s spit to agree that, yes, it was definitely dried blood on the site), before announcing his newest conclusion and pulling a body from a bog.
Opposing Goals
The local leaders are determined demonstrating that the maid met her end by a bear, maybe to preserve the peace, perhaps to shield a fellow elite. The pastor is intent on proving otherwise, and the evidence so rapidly stacks up in his favour that again the show’s credibility and audience tolerance get strained. In its finest moments, To Cook a Bear evokes memories of the TV version some years back of Sarah Perry’s The Essex Serpent, through its portrayal of the opposing attractions and terrors presented by science and belief. At its worst, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it does seem to offer the response to the earlier query: “Females, choose the animal.”
To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ now.
