A intense discussion recently spread widely across online platforms, following a user posed the question to women: which would you prefer find yourself stranded in the woods alongside a male or a bear? Like all the most engaging thought experiments, it revealed vastly opposing perspectives and life encounters, illuminated chasms among genders, and was likely cause an existential crisis for anyone pondering on it extensively. There was also the predictable follow-up in which some males came online to tell women how foolish they had been to select the bear and proceeded to limn the punishments they deserved for it. This at least allowed those females who were uncertain about their decision to decide with renewed assurance.
Portraying the Scenario
The Bear-Cooking Tale skillfully brings to life this clever little setup. This six-episode series is based on Scandinavian writer Mikael Niemi’s 2018 book with the identical title (translated in 2020 for English readers). It follows the struggles of a pastor (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his family as they come to begin a new ministry within Kengis, a remote settlement in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. In a place lacking many joys, not one of the locals especially warm to his strict stance on drinking and dancing, but it is his protection of the poor – especially the native Sami population, from which hails the preacher’s foster child the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his conviction in societal fairness and equality that sets him on a collision course against the Kengis local authorities.
The Antagonists
Quickly collaborating opposing him are the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the fearsome mill owner the matron Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen initially dismissing a newly injured worker with a month’s pay while he is still gibbering upon seeing of his pulped hand, and all others who benefit from a community who can be bought with some containers of the whisky sold by the unsettling store owner Lindmark (the actor). Although, to be fair, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes once itinerant painter Beronius arrives in the story (the performer, providing a performance of exceptional unsettling intensity). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, they still serve as effective ones.
Narrative Development
Once the foundations of conflict sown, the moment arrives to proceed to narrative business. The maid from the doctor’s house, Hilda (the actress), duly vanishes from the woods. Indications of her flight and animal scratches on a tree get discovered yet she remains completely absent. Rumours and anxieties of a man/maid-eating bear prowling 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 peculiar show. It conjures a strong impression of the bleakness that allows distrust and bias and dark myths flourish based on local folklore that bears can be controlled or possessed by the souls of humans. It avoids romanticise the tough existence experienced by the residents, where violence, whether that of the wild or people, always looms at the periphery, waiting to erupt. But the characters rarely become more than ciphers – or maybe, while the conflicts between justice and vengeance, rationality and faith, good and wickedness intensify, emblematic figures within a moral tale – preventing the entire production truly becoming immersive.
Tonal Inconsistencies
Additionally, there are the many tonally jarring instances in which the clergyman’s skill to discover clues and discern Hilda’s fate turns nearly laughable. He positions himself observing broken milk pots and strands of fur within storage sheds like a combined the Belgian detective the English sleuth – with Jussi a rather hapless assistant figure (neither of whom had to taste a blend of blood spatter and the boss’s spit to agree that indeed, it was definitely dried blood at the crime scene), before announcing his newest conclusion and extracting a body from a bog.
Clashing Agendas
The local leaders are determined proving that Hilda met her end by a bear, maybe to preserve the peace, or possibly to protect a fellow elite. The pastor is bent on establishing otherwise, and the proof 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 is reminiscent of the adaptation some years back of Sarah Perry’s The Essex Serpent, with its evocation of the opposing allures and terrors offered by science and belief. At its worst, it’s more like a bear-themed police procedural. Nevertheless, it appears to offer the answer to the earlier query: “Females, choose the animal.”
To Cook a Bear is on Disney+ now.
