A heated discussion recently spread widely on social media, following a user posed the question for females: which would you prefer be lost in the woods alongside a male or a bear? Similar to the best thought experiments, it revealed vastly opposing perspectives and life encounters, highlighted chasms among genders, and was likely to induce an existential crisis for anyone pondering on it extensively. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable coda in which men of a certain stripe took to the internet to inform women how foolish they were for choosing the bear and proceeded to describe the consequences they deserved for that choice. This at minimum enabled those females who were uncertain over their choice to decide with a new confidence.
Portraying the Setup
The Bear-Cooking Tale skillfully brings to life this nifty small premise. The six-part series is based on Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s 2018 novel of the same name (rendered two years later for English readers). It follows the tribulations of a pastor (the lead actor) and his family as they come to begin a fresh religious post in Kengis, an isolated village in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. Within a community with few pleasures, none of the locals particularly appreciate his strict stance on drinking and revelry, yet it is his protection of the poor – especially the native Sami population, from which hails the preacher’s adopted son the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in social justice and equal rights that places him on a collision course with the Kengis powers that be.
The Opposing Forces
Soon collaborating opposing him are the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the intimidating mill owner the matron Sjödahl (the actress), seen initially firing a recently mangled worker with a month’s pay while he is still gibbering at the sight of his pulped hand, and anyone else who benefit from a populace who can be bought with some containers of the whisky provided by the unsettling shopkeeper Lindmark (the actor). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness pales when travelling artist the artist Beronius arrives on the scene (Simon J Berger, delivering a performance of rare unsettling intensity). If they are – similar to the clergyman – only a little more than caricatures, they are at least effective ones.
Plot Progression
Once the foundations of conflict planted, the moment arrives to get down to narrative business. The servant employed by the doctor, Hilda (the actress), duly goes missing from the woods. Signs of her flight and bear markings upon a trunk get discovered yet she remains completely absent. Gossip and fears regarding a human-devouring beast prowling the woodland circulate, yet the clergyman has another theory that he and Jussi set out to verify.
A Strange Creation
To Cook a Bear is a somewhat peculiar show. It conjures a strong impression of the bleakness that lets suspicion and bias and dark myths flourish based on local folklore that bears might be dominated or possessed by the spirits of humans. It avoids romanticise the tough existence experienced by the villagers, in which brutality, whether that of the wild or people, always looms at the periphery, poised to explode. Yet the personas rarely become beyond symbols – or perhaps, as the struggles amid fairness and vengeance, logic and faith, good and evil escalate, representative characters in a fable – preventing the entire production truly coming to life.
Tonal Inconsistencies
Additionally, there are numerous tonally jarring moments where the clergyman’s skill to discover clues and determine Hilda’s fate turns almost risible. He positions himself looking at shattered containers and clumps of hair in hay barns like a combined the Belgian detective and Sherlock Holmes – with Jussi a rather hapless Hastings-cum-Watson (neither of whom were required to taste a blend of blood droplets and the boss’s spit to confirm that, yes, it was definitely coagulated blood on the site), before announcing his latest deduction and pulling a corpse from a bog.
Opposing Goals
The local leaders are bent on demonstrating that the maid was killed by a bear, maybe to preserve the peace, perhaps to protect a fellow elite. The clergyman is bent on proving otherwise, and the proof so quickly accumulates in his favour that once more the show’s credibility and the viewer’s patience are tested. In its finest moments, To Cook a Bear is reminiscent of the adaptation a few years ago of Sarah Perry’s The Essex Serpent, through its portrayal of the competing attractions and fears presented by rational thought and religion. In its low points, it resembles a bear-themed police procedural. Still, it appears to provide the answer to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”
The series streams on Disney+ currently.
