An intense debate recently spread widely on social media, following a user asked the question for females: would you rather be lost in the woods with a man or with a bear? Similar to the best hypothetical scenarios, it revealed wildly different perspectives and experiences, illuminated divides between the sexes, and was likely cause an existential crisis if you thought about it extensively. There was also the predictable follow-up where men of a certain stripe came online to tell women how stupid they had been to select the bear and went on to describe the consequences they deserved for that choice. This at least enabled those females who were uncertain about their decision to make it with renewed assurance.
Portraying the Setup
The Bear-Cooking Tale skillfully dramatises this clever small premise. This six-episode drama is based on Swedish author the novelist’s 2018 book with the identical title (translated in 2020 for an English audience). It follows the tribulations of a pastor (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his family when they arrive to begin a new ministry in Kengis, a remote settlement in northern Sweden, in 1852. Within a community lacking many joys, not one of the locals especially warm to his strict stance on drinking and dancing, but it is his defense of the poor – especially the native Sami population, from among whom comes the pastor’s foster child Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in social justice and equal rights that sets him on a collision course with the Kengis local authorities.
The Opposing Forces
Quickly in cahoots opposing him include the sheriff the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating mill owner Madam Sjödahl (the actress), seen early on firing a newly injured worker with minimal compensation as he remains babbling upon seeing his crushed hand, and anyone else who profit from a community who can be bought with some containers of liquor sold by the unsettling shopkeeper the merchant Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, to be fair, Lindmark’s eeriness pales once itinerant painter Beronius arrives in the story (Simon J Berger, delivering a performance of rare unsettling intensity). While they remain – like the pastor himself – just slightly beyond than caricatures, they are at least effective ones.
Plot Progression
Once the foundations of conflict sown, the moment arrives to get down to narrative business. The maid employed by the doctor, Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), duly vanishes from the woods. Signs of her flight and animal scratches on a tree get discovered yet she remains completely absent. Gossip and anxieties of a man/maid-eating bear prowling the woods circulate, yet the clergyman has another theory which he and his ward embark to verify.
A Strange Creation
To Cook a Bear is a somewhat peculiar show. It creates a strong impression of the desolation that lets suspicion and prejudice and dark myths flourish based on local folklore that bears can be controlled or possessed by the spirits of men. And it doesn’t romanticise the tough existence led by the residents, where violence, whether that of the wild or people, lurks constantly on the edges, waiting to erupt. But the characters seldom evolve more than ciphers – or maybe, while the conflicts between justice and vengeance, rationality and faith, good and wickedness escalate, emblematic figures in a fable – which stops the entire production truly becoming immersive.
Tonal Inconsistencies
Additionally, there are the many stylistically clashing moments where the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and discern Hilda’s fate becomes almost risible. He positions himself looking at broken milk pots and clumps of hair in hay barns like a combined the Belgian detective and Sherlock Holmes – with Jussi a rather hapless assistant figure (neither of whom were required to lick a blend of blood spatter and the boss’s spit to agree that indeed, it was clearly coagulated blood at the crime scene), before announcing his latest deduction and extracting a corpse out of a swamp.
Opposing Goals
The local leaders are determined proving that Hilda was killed by a bear, perhaps to protect the calm, perhaps to protect a fellow elite. The pastor is intent on establishing otherwise, and the proof so quickly accumulates in his favour that once more the drama’s plausibility and the viewer’s patience are tested. In its finest moments, To Cook a Bear is reminiscent of the TV version some years back of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the opposing allures and fears presented by rational thought and religion. At its worst, it’s more like Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it appears to offer the answer to the earlier query: “Females, choose the animal.”
To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ currently.
