A intense debate lately went viral on social media, following a user posed a query to women: would you rather find yourself stranded in the woods alongside a male or with a bear? Like all the most engaging hypothetical scenarios, it revealed vastly opposing worldviews and life encounters, highlighted chasms between the sexes, and was likely to induce a deep personal dilemma if you thought on it extensively. There was also the almost inevitable coda in which some males took to the internet to inform women how stupid they had been to select the animal and proceeded to limn the punishments they deserved for that choice. This at minimum allowed those females who had been hesitating about their decision to make it with renewed assurance.
Portraying the Setup
The Bear-Cooking Tale skillfully dramatises this nifty little setup. The six-part drama is based from Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s 2018 book with the identical title (rendered two years later for an English audience). It traces the tribulations of a pastor (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his family when they arrive to begin a new ministry in Kengis, an isolated settlement in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. Within a community with few pleasures, not one of the locals especially appreciate his puritanical stance on drinking and revelry, but it is his protection of impoverished people – particularly the native Sami population, from among whom hails the preacher’s foster child the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his conviction in societal fairness and equality that places him on a collision course against the Kengis local authorities.
The Antagonists
Quickly in cahoots against him include the lawman Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (the actress), seen initially dismissing a recently mangled laborer with minimal compensation as he remains gibbering at the sight his crushed hand, and all others who benefit from a community easily swayed for a few bottles of the whisky provided by the creepy store owner the merchant Lindmark (the actor). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes once travelling artist the artist Beronius appears on the scene (Simon J Berger, providing an acting turn of rare discomfiting power). If they are – similar to the clergyman – only a little more than caricatures, they are at least effective ones.
Plot Progression
With the seeds of conflict planted, the moment arrives to get down to narrative business. The maid from the doctor’s house, Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), accordingly goes missing from the woods. Indications of her escape and animal scratches 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 embark to verify.
A Strange Creation
To Cook a Bear is a somewhat peculiar show. It conjures a fine sense of the bleakness that allows suspicion and prejudice and dark myths thrive from the native legend that animals might be dominated or inhabited by the spirits of humans. It avoids idealising the hardscrabble life experienced by the villagers, where violence, whether that of the wild or people, always looms on the edges, waiting to erupt. But the characters rarely become beyond symbols – or maybe, as the struggles amid fairness and vengeance, rationality and faith, good and wickedness escalate, representative characters in a fable – which stops the whole thing truly becoming immersive.
Stylistic Shifts
And then, exist the many tonally jarring moments where the pastor’s ability to discover clues and discern the maid’s destiny turns almost risible. He positions himself looking at shattered containers and clumps of hair within storage sheds as a fusion of the Belgian detective the English sleuth – alongside Jussi a rather hapless Hastings-cum-Watson (none of whom were required to lick a blend of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to confirm that, yes, it was definitely coagulated blood on the site), prior to declaring his latest deduction and extracting a corpse out of a swamp.
Clashing Agendas
The local leaders are bent on demonstrating that Hilda was killed by an animal, perhaps to protect the peace, perhaps to protect a fellow elite. The pastor is bent on establishing the opposite, and the proof so quickly stacks up supporting his view that once more the show’s credibility and audience tolerance get strained. At its best, To Cook a Bear evokes memories of the TV version a few years ago of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the competing attractions and fears presented by rational thought and religion. At its worst, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it does seem to offer the answer to the earlier query: “Females, choose the animal.”
The series is on Disney+ now.
