An heated discussion lately spread widely across online platforms, after a user posed the question for females: would you rather find yourself stranded in the woods alongside a male or with a bear? Similar to the best hypothetical scenarios, it exposed wildly different worldviews and experiences, illuminated divides between the sexes, and was likely cause a deep personal dilemma if you thought about it for too long. There was also the almost inevitable coda in which some males came online to tell women how stupid they had been to select the animal and went on to describe the punishments they merited for that choice. This at least enabled those females who were uncertain about their decision to make it with a new confidence.
Portraying the Scenario
The Bear-Cooking Tale skillfully brings to life this clever small premise. The six-part series 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 clergyman (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his family when they arrive to start a new ministry within Kengis, an isolated village in Sweden’s north, in 1852. In a place lacking many joys, none of the locals particularly appreciate his strict approach to drinking and revelry, yet it is his protection of impoverished people – especially the native Sami population, from among whom hails the pastor’s foster child Jussi (the young actor) – and his conviction in societal fairness and equal rights that places him in direct opposition with the Kengis local authorities.
The Antagonists
Soon collaborating opposing him are the lawman the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the fearsome factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (the actress), observed early on firing a newly injured worker with a month’s pay as he remains babbling at the sight his crushed hand, and anyone else who benefit from a populace easily swayed with some containers of liquor sold by the unsettling shopkeeper Lindmark (the actor). However, to be fair, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes once itinerant painter the artist Beronius arrives in the story (the performer, providing an acting turn of exceptional discomfiting power). If they are – like the pastor himself – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, they are at least potent archetypes.
Plot Progression
With the seeds of conflict planted, it is time to proceed to narrative business. The maid employed by the doctor, Hilda (the actress), duly vanishes from the woods. Signs of her flight and bear markings upon a trunk are found but she is completely absent. Rumours and fears of a man/maid-eating beast roaming 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 slightly peculiar show. It conjures a strong impression of the bleakness that allows suspicion and bias and dark myths thrive based on local folklore that animals can be controlled or possessed by the spirits of humans. And it doesn’t idealising the tough existence experienced by the residents, where violence, be it from the wild or mankind, lurks constantly at the periphery, poised to explode. Yet the personas rarely become more than ciphers – or maybe, while the conflicts amid fairness and revenge, logic and faith, good and wickedness escalate, emblematic figures in a fable – which stops the whole thing fully becoming immersive.
Tonal Inconsistencies
Additionally, there are numerous stylistically clashing instances in which the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and discern Hilda’s fate turns almost risible. He positions himself looking at broken milk pots and strands of fur in hay barns as a fusion of Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – alongside Jussi a rather hapless assistant figure (neither of whom had to lick a blend of blood spatter and the boss’s spit to agree that, yes, it was clearly dried blood on the site), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and pulling a body from a bog.
Clashing Agendas
The village elite are bent on demonstrating that Hilda was killed by an animal, perhaps to protect the peace, perhaps to protect a fellow elite. The clergyman is intent on establishing the opposite, and the evidence so quickly accumulates in his favour that again the drama’s plausibility and the viewer’s patience get strained. In its finest moments, To Cook a Bear evokes memories of the TV version a few years ago of Sarah Perry’s The Essex Serpent, through its portrayal of the opposing allures and terrors offered by science and belief. In its low points, it’s more like a bear-themed police procedural. Still, it appears to provide the response to the earlier query: “Females, choose the animal.”
The series streams on Disney+ now.
