A intense debate lately spread widely across online platforms, following someone asked the question to women: which would you prefer be lost in the woods alongside a male or a bear? Similar to the most engaging hypothetical scenarios, it exposed vastly opposing perspectives and life encounters, illuminated chasms between the sexes, and could easily to induce an existential crisis for anyone pondering about it for too long. There was also the predictable follow-up where men of a certain stripe took to the internet to inform females how stupid they had been for choosing the bear and proceeded to describe the consequences they deserved for that choice. This at minimum enabled 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 drama is based from Scandinavian writer the novelist’s 2018 novel of the same name (translated in 2020 for an English audience). It traces the tribulations of a clergyman (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his household when they arrive to start a new ministry within Kengis, an isolated village in Sweden’s north, during the mid-19th century. In a place with few pleasures, not one of the locals especially warm to his strict approach to alcohol and revelry, yet it is his protection of the poor – especially the native Sami population, from which comes the pastor’s adopted son the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in societal fairness and equality that sets him on a collision course against the Kengis powers that be.
The Opposing Forces
Quickly collaborating against him are the lawman Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating mill owner Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed initially dismissing a newly injured laborer with minimal compensation as he remains gibbering at the sight of his pulped hand, and all others who benefit from a community easily swayed for a few bottles of liquor provided by the creepy shopkeeper the merchant Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). However, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness pales once travelling artist the artist Beronius appears on the scene (Simon J Berger, delivering an acting turn of rare unsettling intensity). If they are – like the pastor himself – only a little more than caricatures, they are at least effective ones.
Narrative Development
Once the foundations of conflict sown, the moment arrives to get down to narrative business. The servant employed by the doctor, the character Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), duly vanishes in the forest. Signs of her escape and bear markings upon a trunk are found yet she remains nowhere to be seen. Gossip and anxieties of a man/maid-eating beast prowling the woodland spread, but the pastor holds a different view which he and his ward embark to prove.
An Odd Beast
To Cook a Bear is a somewhat odd beast. It conjures a fine sense of the desolation that allows suspicion and prejudice and grim legends thrive based on local folklore that animals can be controlled or possessed by the spirits of humans. It avoids idealising the tough existence led by the residents, in which violence, whether that of nature or people, lurks constantly on the edges, poised to explode. But the characters seldom evolve more than ciphers – or maybe, while the conflicts between justice and revenge, rationality and faith, good and wickedness escalate, emblematic figures in a fable – which stops the entire production fully coming to life.
Tonal Inconsistencies
And then, exist numerous stylistically clashing moments where the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and discern Hilda’s fate becomes nearly laughable. He stands looking at shattered containers and clumps of hair in hay barns like a combined the Belgian detective and Sherlock Holmes – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (neither of whom were required to lick a blend of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to confirm that, yes, it was definitely coagulated blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his latest deduction and extracting a corpse out of a swamp.
Clashing Agendas
The village elite are bent on demonstrating that Hilda met her end by an animal, maybe to protect the calm, or possibly to protect a fellow elite. The pastor is intent on establishing otherwise, and the evidence so quickly stacks up in his favour that once more the show’s credibility and the viewer’s patience are tested. At its best, To Cook a Bear evokes memories of the adaptation a few years ago of the author’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the opposing allures and fears presented by science and religion. At its worst, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it appears to provide the response to that debated question: “Females, choose the animal.”
The series is on Disney+ currently.
