A heated discussion lately spread widely on social media, after a user asked the question to women: which would you prefer be lost in a forest alongside a male or with a bear? Similar to the best thought experiments, it revealed wildly different worldviews and life encounters, illuminated chasms between the sexes, and could easily to induce a deep personal dilemma if you thought about it extensively. There was also the predictable follow-up in which men of a certain stripe came online to inform women how stupid they were to select the animal and proceeded to describe the punishments they merited for that choice. This at minimum enabled the women who had been hesitating over their choice to decide with a new confidence.
Dramatising the Setup
The Bear-Cooking Tale effectively dramatises this clever small premise. The six-part series is based 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 (the lead actor) and his household when they arrive to begin a new ministry within Kengis, a remote village in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. In a place lacking many joys, not one of the inhabitants particularly appreciate his strict approach to alcohol and dancing, yet it is his protection of the poor – particularly the indigenous Sami, from among whom comes the preacher’s foster child the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his conviction in social justice and equal rights that places him on a collision course with the Kengis local authorities.
The Opposing Forces
Quickly in cahoots against him include the lawman the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the intimidating factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (the actress), observed initially dismissing a recently mangled laborer with a month’s pay while he is still gibbering at the sight of his pulped hand, and all others who benefit from a community who can be bought with some containers of the whisky provided by the unsettling store owner the merchant Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes once itinerant painter Beronius appears in the story (Simon J Berger, providing an acting turn of rare unsettling intensity). If they are – like the pastor himself – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, 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 (the actress), accordingly vanishes from the woods. Indications of her flight and animal scratches on a tree are found but she is completely absent. Rumours and anxieties regarding a human-devouring bear roaming the woodland spread, yet the clergyman holds a different view that he and Jussi embark to verify.
An Odd Beast
To Cook a Bear is a somewhat peculiar show. It creates a strong impression of the desolation that allows suspicion and bias and dark myths flourish from the native legend that bears can be controlled or possessed by the spirits of men. It avoids idealising the hardscrabble life experienced by the residents, in which violence, be it from nature or people, lurks constantly at the periphery, poised to explode. But the characters seldom evolve more than ciphers – or maybe, as the struggles amid fairness and revenge, rationality and religion, good and wickedness escalate, emblematic figures in a fable – preventing the whole thing fully becoming immersive.
Tonal Inconsistencies
And then, exist the many tonally jarring moments in which the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and determine the maid’s destiny becomes nearly laughable. He positions himself looking at shattered containers and clumps of hair within storage sheds like a combined the Belgian detective the English sleuth – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (none of whom were required to lick a mixture of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to confirm that, yes, it was definitely coagulated blood on the site), before announcing his newest conclusion and extracting a body from a bog.
Clashing Agendas
The village elite are determined proving that Hilda was killed by a bear, perhaps to protect the calm, or possibly to protect one of their own. The clergyman is bent on establishing the opposite, and the proof so quickly stacks up in his favour that once more the drama’s plausibility and audience tolerance are tested. At its best, To Cook a Bear is reminiscent of the adaptation some years back of Sarah Perry’s The Essex Serpent, through its portrayal of the competing attractions and fears offered by science and religion. In its low points, it resembles a bear-themed police procedural. Still, it appears to provide the response to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”
The series streams on Disney+ now.
