An intense discussion lately went viral across online platforms, following someone asked the question for females: would you rather be lost in the woods alongside a male or a bear? Similar to the best hypothetical scenarios, it revealed vastly opposing worldviews and experiences, illuminated chasms between the sexes, and was likely cause a deep personal dilemma for anyone pondering on it for too long. There was also the almost inevitable coda in which men of a certain stripe took to the internet to tell women how stupid they were for choosing the animal and went on to describe the consequences they deserved for that choice. This at minimum enabled the women who were uncertain about their decision to decide with renewed assurance.
Portraying the Scenario
The Bear-Cooking Tale effectively dramatises this clever little setup. This six-episode series is based on Scandinavian writer Mikael Niemi’s 2018 novel of the same name (translated in 2020 for English readers). It follows the tribulations of a pastor (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his family as they come to start a new ministry within Kengis, an isolated settlement in northern Sweden, in 1852. In a place with few pleasures, not one of the locals especially appreciate his strict stance on alcohol and revelry, but it is his protection of the poor – particularly the indigenous Sami, from among whom comes the preacher’s adopted son Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his conviction in social justice and equality that places him on a collision course against the Kengis powers that be.
The Antagonists
Soon collaborating opposing him include the sheriff the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the fearsome factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (the actress), observed initially dismissing a recently mangled worker with minimal compensation while he is still babbling at the sight his crushed hand, and anyone else who profit from a community easily swayed with some containers of liquor sold by the creepy shopkeeper the merchant Lindmark (the actor). However, to be fair, Lindmark’s eeriness pales when itinerant painter Beronius arrives on the scene (the performer, providing a performance of rare discomfiting power). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – only a little more than caricatures, they still serve as potent archetypes.
Plot Progression
With the seeds of tension sown, the moment arrives to get down with the storyline. The servant 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 but she is completely absent. Rumours and fears of a man/maid-eating bear prowling the woods spread, but the pastor has another theory that he and Jussi set out to verify.
A Strange Creation
This Bear Drama is a slightly peculiar show. It creates a fine sense of the desolation that allows distrust and prejudice and grim legends thrive based on local folklore that bears can be controlled or inhabited by the spirits of humans. It avoids romanticise the tough existence led by the villagers, in which violence, whether that of the wild or people, always looms on the edges, waiting to erupt. But the characters rarely become more than ciphers – or maybe, as the struggles between justice and revenge, rationality and religion, good and wickedness escalate, representative characters in a fable – preventing the entire production truly becoming immersive.
Tonal Inconsistencies
Additionally, exist numerous tonally jarring moments where the pastor’s ability to discover clues and determine the maid’s destiny turns almost risible. He positions himself looking at broken milk pots and clumps of hair within storage sheds as a fusion of the Belgian detective and Sherlock Holmes – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (neither of whom were required to lick a blend of blood spatter and the boss’s spit to confirm that indeed, it was definitely dried blood on the site), before announcing his latest deduction and pulling a body out of a swamp.
Clashing Agendas
The village elite are determined demonstrating that Hilda was killed by a bear, maybe to protect the calm, or possibly to protect one of their own. The pastor is bent on proving the opposite, and the evidence so quickly stacks up in his favour that again the show’s credibility and audience tolerance are tested. At its best, To Cook a Bear evokes memories of the TV version some years back of the author’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the competing attractions and fears presented by science and religion. In its low points, it’s more like Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Nevertheless, it appears to offer the response to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”
To Cook a Bear is on Disney+ now.
