An heated discussion lately spread widely on social media, after a user asked the question for females: would you rather find yourself stranded in a forest with a man or with a bear? Like all the most engaging thought experiments, it exposed vastly opposing worldviews and life encounters, highlighted chasms between the sexes, and was likely cause a deep personal dilemma for anyone pondering about it extensively. There was also the predictable follow-up where some males came online to tell females how stupid they were to select the animal and went on to describe the punishments they merited for that choice. This at minimum allowed the women who were uncertain over their choice to decide with renewed assurance.
Portraying the Scenario
The Bear-Cooking Tale skillfully brings to life this clever small premise. The six-part series is based on Scandinavian writer the novelist’s 2018 novel of the same name (rendered in 2020 for an English audience). It follows the struggles of a clergyman (the lead actor) and his household when they arrive to start a fresh religious post within Kengis, a remote settlement in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. Within a community with few pleasures, none of the inhabitants particularly appreciate his puritanical approach to alcohol and revelry, yet it is his protection of impoverished people – particularly the indigenous Sami, from which comes the preacher’s adopted son the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his conviction in social justice and equality that sets him on a collision course against the Kengis local authorities.
The Antagonists
Soon in cahoots against him include the sheriff the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the fearsome mill owner Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed initially dismissing a recently mangled worker with a month’s pay while he is still babbling at the sight his crushed hand, and anyone else who profit from a populace easily swayed for a few bottles of liquor provided by the unsettling shopkeeper Lindmark (the actor). However, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness pales once travelling artist the artist Beronius arrives in the story (the performer, delivering a performance of rare discomfiting power). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – only a little more than caricatures, they still serve as effective ones.
Plot Progression
With the seeds of conflict planted, the moment arrives to proceed with the storyline. The maid from the doctor’s house, Hilda (the actress), duly vanishes in the forest. Signs of her flight and animal scratches on a tree get discovered but she is nowhere to be seen. Gossip and anxieties of a man/maid-eating beast prowling the woodland circulate, but the pastor has another theory that he and Jussi set out to verify.
A Strange Creation
To Cook a Bear is a somewhat odd beast. It creates a fine sense of the bleakness that lets distrust and bias and dark myths flourish from the native legend that bears might be dominated or possessed by the spirits of men. And it doesn’t romanticise the hardscrabble life experienced by the villagers, in which brutality, be it from the wild or people, lurks constantly on the edges, poised to explode. Yet the personas seldom evolve beyond symbols – or perhaps, while the conflicts between justice and vengeance, rationality and faith, good and wickedness intensify, representative characters within a moral tale – preventing the entire production truly becoming immersive.
Tonal Inconsistencies
Additionally, there are numerous stylistically clashing moments in which the pastor’s ability to discover clues and discern the maid’s destiny becomes almost risible. He positions himself looking at shattered containers and clumps of hair in hay barns as a fusion of the Belgian detective and Sherlock Holmes – with Jussi a rather hapless Hastings-cum-Watson (none of whom were required to taste a blend of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to confirm that indeed, it was definitely dried blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his latest deduction and pulling a body out of a swamp.
Opposing Goals
The village elite are bent on demonstrating that Hilda was killed by an animal, maybe to preserve the peace, or possibly to shield a fellow elite. The pastor is bent on proving otherwise, and the evidence so rapidly accumulates in his favour that again the show’s credibility and the viewer’s patience get strained. At its best, To Cook a Bear evokes memories of the adaptation some years back of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the competing allures and terrors offered by science and religion. In its low points, it’s more like 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+ now.
