A intense debate lately went viral across online platforms, following a user asked the question to women: would you rather be lost in the woods alongside a male or with a bear? Similar to the most engaging hypothetical scenarios, it exposed wildly different perspectives and life encounters, highlighted chasms between the sexes, and could easily cause a deep personal dilemma for anyone pondering about it for too long. Additionally, there came the predictable coda in which men of a certain stripe came online to inform females how foolish they were to select the bear and proceeded to limn the consequences they merited for it. This at least enabled the women who had been hesitating over their choice to decide with renewed assurance.
Dramatising the Scenario
The Bear-Cooking Tale skillfully dramatises this nifty little setup. This six-episode drama is adapted from Scandinavian writer Mikael Niemi’s 2018 novel with the identical title (rendered two years later for an English audience). It follows the struggles of a pastor (the lead actor) and his family when they arrive to begin a new ministry within Kengis, an isolated settlement in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. In a place lacking many joys, none of the locals especially appreciate his puritanical approach to drinking and dancing, yet it is his protection of the poor – particularly the native Sami population, from which comes the pastor’s foster child the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his belief in societal fairness and equality that places him in direct opposition with the Kengis local authorities.
The Opposing Forces
Quickly in cahoots opposing him are the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating mill owner Madam Sjödahl (the actress), observed initially firing a newly injured worker with a month’s pay while he is still babbling at the sight of his pulped hand, and anyone else who benefit from a community easily swayed with some containers of the whisky sold by the creepy shopkeeper the merchant Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, to be fair, Lindmark’s eeriness pales when itinerant painter Beronius arrives on the scene (Simon J Berger, providing an acting turn of exceptional unsettling intensity). If they are – like the pastor himself – only a little more than caricatures, they still serve as potent archetypes.
Plot Progression
With the seeds of tension sown, the moment arrives to get down to narrative business. The servant from the doctor’s house, Hilda (the actress), accordingly vanishes in the forest. Signs of her escape and animal scratches upon a trunk get discovered but she is completely absent. Gossip and anxieties of a man/maid-eating beast roaming the woods circulate, yet the clergyman holds a different view which he and his ward set out to verify.
A Strange Creation
To Cook a Bear is a slightly peculiar show. It creates a strong impression of the bleakness that lets distrust and prejudice and dark myths flourish from the native legend that bears might be dominated or inhabited by the spirits of men. And it doesn’t idealising the hardscrabble life experienced by the residents, in which brutality, be it from the wild or mankind, lurks constantly at the periphery, waiting to erupt. But the characters seldom evolve beyond symbols – or maybe, as the struggles between justice and revenge, logic and religion, good and wickedness escalate, representative characters within a moral tale – preventing the whole thing fully coming to life.
Tonal Inconsistencies
And then, exist numerous tonally jarring instances in which the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and determine Hilda’s fate turns almost risible. He stands observing broken milk pots and strands of fur in hay barns like a combined the Belgian detective and Sherlock Holmes – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (neither of whom had to taste a blend of blood spatter and the boss’s spit to confirm that indeed, it was definitely coagulated blood on the site), before announcing his latest deduction and pulling a body from a bog.
Clashing Agendas
The local leaders are determined demonstrating that Hilda met her end by a bear, maybe to protect the calm, perhaps to shield one of their own. The pastor is intent on proving otherwise, and the proof so quickly accumulates in his favour that once more the drama’s plausibility and the viewer’s patience are tested. In its finest moments, To Cook a Bear evokes memories of the TV version a few years ago of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the opposing allures and fears presented by rational thought and religion. In its low points, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Nevertheless, it does seem to offer the answer to that debated question: “Females, choose the animal.”
To Cook a Bear is on Disney+ currently.
