A heated debate recently spread widely on social media, after a user asked the question to women: would you rather find yourself stranded in the woods with a man or a bear? Like all the best thought experiments, it exposed wildly different perspectives and life encounters, illuminated chasms among genders, and was likely cause a deep personal dilemma if you thought on it extensively. There was also the predictable follow-up in which men of a certain stripe came online to inform females how stupid they had been for choosing the animal and went on to describe the consequences they merited for it. This at minimum allowed the women who had been hesitating about their decision to decide with a new confidence.
Portraying the Scenario
The Bear-Cooking Tale effectively dramatises this clever little setup. The six-part series is adapted from Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s 2018 book with the identical title (rendered two years later for English readers). It traces the struggles of a pastor (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his family as they come to start a fresh religious post within Kengis, a remote village in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. Within a community with few pleasures, none of the inhabitants particularly appreciate his puritanical approach to alcohol and dancing, but it is his protection of the poor – especially the indigenous Sami, from which comes the pastor’s foster child Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in social justice and equal rights that sets him in direct opposition against the Kengis powers that be.
The Antagonists
Soon in cahoots opposing him are the lawman Brahe (the performer), the fearsome factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen early on dismissing a recently mangled worker with a month’s pay as he remains gibbering upon seeing of his pulped hand, and anyone else who benefit from a community who can be bought for a few bottles of liquor sold by the unsettling store owner the merchant Lindmark (the actor). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness pales when itinerant painter the artist Beronius arrives on the scene (Simon J Berger, delivering a performance of exceptional discomfiting power). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond than caricatures, they are at least effective ones.
Narrative Development
With the seeds of conflict planted, it is time to get down to narrative business. The maid from the doctor’s house, the character Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), duly vanishes from the woods. Signs of her escape and animal scratches upon a trunk get discovered but she is nowhere to be seen. Rumours and anxieties of a man/maid-eating bear roaming the woodland circulate, yet the clergyman holds a different view which he and his ward embark to verify.
A Strange Creation
To Cook a Bear is a somewhat peculiar show. It conjures a strong impression of the desolation that lets distrust and prejudice and grim legends thrive 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 violence, be it from the wild or mankind, always looms on the edges, poised to explode. Yet the personas seldom evolve more than ciphers – or perhaps, while the conflicts between justice and vengeance, logic and religion, good and wickedness escalate, representative characters in a fable – which stops the entire production fully becoming immersive.
Tonal Inconsistencies
Additionally, exist numerous stylistically clashing instances in which the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and discern Hilda’s fate becomes almost risible. He stands looking at broken milk pots and strands of fur in hay barns like a combined the Belgian detective and Sherlock Holmes – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (neither of whom were required to lick a blend of blood droplets and the boss’s spit to confirm that, yes, it was definitely dried blood at the crime scene), before announcing his latest deduction and extracting a corpse out of a swamp.
Opposing Goals
The village elite are bent on demonstrating that the maid met her end by an animal, perhaps to protect the peace, perhaps to shield a fellow elite. The pastor is intent on establishing otherwise, and the evidence so quickly accumulates supporting his view that again the show’s credibility and audience tolerance get strained. In its finest moments, To Cook a Bear is reminiscent of the adaptation a few years ago of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the opposing attractions and fears presented by rational thought and belief. In its low points, it resembles a bear-themed police procedural. Nevertheless, it appears to offer the answer to that debated question: “Ladies, take the bear.”
To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ now.
