An intense debate lately spread widely across online platforms, after a user posed the question for females: which would you prefer be lost in the woods with a man or with a bear? Similar to the most engaging hypothetical scenarios, it exposed wildly different perspectives and experiences, highlighted divides among genders, and was likely 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 females how foolish they had been to select the animal and went on to describe the punishments they merited for it. This at least enabled the women who were uncertain over their choice to decide with a new confidence.
Dramatising the Scenario
The Bear-Cooking Tale effectively brings to life this nifty small premise. The six-part series is based from Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s 2018 novel of the same name (rendered two years later for an English audience). It traces the tribulations of a clergyman (the lead actor) and his household as they come to start a fresh religious post within Kengis, a remote village in Sweden’s north, in 1852. Within a community with few pleasures, not one of the locals especially appreciate his strict approach to drinking and dancing, yet it is his protection of the poor – especially the native Sami population, from which hails the pastor’s foster child the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in societal fairness and equal rights that places him in direct opposition with the Kengis local authorities.
The Antagonists
Soon collaborating opposing him include the lawman the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating mill owner the matron Sjödahl (the actress), observed early on firing a newly injured worker with minimal compensation while he is still babbling at the sight his crushed hand, and anyone else who profit from a community who can be bought for a few bottles of liquor provided by the creepy shopkeeper the merchant Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, to be fair, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes once itinerant painter the artist Beronius arrives on the scene (Simon J Berger, delivering a performance of exceptional discomfiting power). While they remain – like the pastor himself – only a little more than caricatures, they still serve as effective ones.
Plot Progression
With the seeds of conflict sown, the moment arrives to proceed to narrative business. The maid employed by the doctor, Hilda (the actress), accordingly goes missing in the forest. Signs of her escape and animal scratches upon a trunk get discovered but she is completely absent. Gossip and fears of a man/maid-eating bear roaming the woods spread, but the pastor has another theory that he and Jussi set out to verify.
An Odd Beast
To Cook a Bear is a somewhat odd beast. It conjures a fine sense of the desolation that allows distrust and prejudice and grim legends flourish based on local folklore that bears might be dominated or possessed by the souls of men. And it doesn’t romanticise the tough existence led by the residents, where violence, be it from the wild or people, lurks constantly on the edges, waiting to erupt. But the characters seldom evolve beyond symbols – or perhaps, as the struggles amid fairness and revenge, logic and faith, good and evil intensify, representative characters in a fable – which stops the entire production fully becoming immersive.
Stylistic Shifts
Additionally, exist the many stylistically clashing moments in which the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and discern Hilda’s fate becomes nearly laughable. He positions himself observing broken milk pots and clumps of hair in hay barns as a fusion of Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – alongside Jussi a rather hapless Hastings-cum-Watson (none of whom had to taste a mixture of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to agree that, yes, it was definitely coagulated blood on the site), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and extracting a corpse from a bog.
Opposing Goals
The local leaders are determined proving that the maid was killed by an animal, maybe to preserve the calm, perhaps to protect a fellow elite. The clergyman is bent on proving the opposite, and the proof so rapidly stacks up supporting his view that once more the show’s credibility and audience tolerance get strained. In its finest moments, To Cook a Bear evokes memories of the adaptation a few years ago of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the competing attractions and fears offered by science and religion. At its worst, it’s more like Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it does seem to offer the answer to that debated question: “Ladies, take the bear.”
The series streams on Disney+ now.
