A intense discussion recently went viral across online platforms, following someone posed the question for females: would you rather be lost in a forest with a man or with a bear? Like all the most engaging hypothetical scenarios, it exposed vastly opposing perspectives and life encounters, highlighted divides between the sexes, and was likely cause an existential crisis for anyone pondering on it extensively. There was also the almost inevitable follow-up where men of a certain stripe took to the internet to tell women how foolish they had been to select the bear and proceeded to limn the punishments they merited for that choice. This at minimum enabled the women who had been hesitating over their choice to decide with renewed assurance.
Dramatising the Scenario
The Bear-Cooking Tale skillfully brings to life this clever small premise. This six-episode series is based on Swedish author the novelist’s 2018 novel with the identical title (translated in 2020 for English readers). It follows the tribulations of a clergyman (the lead actor) and his family as they come to begin a new ministry within Kengis, an isolated settlement in northern Sweden, in 1852. In a place lacking many joys, not one of the inhabitants especially appreciate his strict stance on drinking and revelry, but it is his defense of the poor – especially the indigenous Sami, from among whom hails the preacher’s foster child Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his conviction in social justice and equality that places him in direct opposition against the Kengis powers that be.
The Opposing Forces
Quickly collaborating opposing him are the lawman Brahe (the performer), the fearsome factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (the actress), observed early on firing a recently mangled worker with minimal compensation while he is still gibbering at the sight his crushed hand, and all others who profit from a community who can be bought with some containers of the whisky sold by the creepy store owner the merchant Lindmark (the actor). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness pales once itinerant painter Beronius appears in the story (the performer, providing a performance of exceptional discomfiting power). If they are – like the pastor himself – just slightly beyond than caricatures, they still serve as potent archetypes.
Plot Progression
Once the foundations of conflict sown, it is time to get down to narrative business. The maid employed by the doctor, Hilda (the actress), accordingly goes missing from the woods. Signs of her escape and bear markings upon a trunk get discovered yet she remains completely absent. Gossip and fears of a man/maid-eating beast prowling the woods spread, but the pastor holds a different view that he and Jussi set out to prove.
An Odd Beast
To Cook a Bear is a slightly peculiar show. It creates a strong impression of the bleakness that allows suspicion and bias and dark myths flourish based on local folklore that bears can be controlled or possessed by the souls of men. It avoids romanticise the tough existence led by the villagers, in which brutality, be it from the wild or people, lurks constantly on the edges, waiting to erupt. Yet the personas rarely become beyond symbols – or perhaps, as the struggles amid fairness and revenge, rationality and faith, virtue and evil escalate, representative characters in a fable – which stops the whole thing truly becoming immersive.
Tonal Inconsistencies
And then, there are numerous tonally jarring instances where the clergyman’s skill to discover clues and determine the maid’s destiny turns nearly laughable. He stands looking at broken milk pots and strands of fur in hay barns like a combined Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (neither of whom had to taste a blend of blood spatter and the boss’s spit to confirm that, yes, it was definitely coagulated blood on the site), before announcing his latest deduction and pulling a corpse from a bog.
Opposing Goals
The local leaders are bent on demonstrating that Hilda met her end by a bear, perhaps to protect the calm, or possibly to protect a fellow elite. The clergyman is intent on proving the opposite, and the evidence so quickly accumulates in his favour that again the show’s credibility and the viewer’s patience are tested. In its finest moments, To Cook a Bear is reminiscent of the TV version a few years ago of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the opposing attractions and terrors presented by rational thought and religion. In its low points, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it appears to provide the response to that debated question: “Females, choose the animal.”
To Cook a Bear is on Disney+ now.
