A intense discussion lately went viral on social media, after someone posed the question for females: which would you prefer be lost in the woods with a man or a bear? Similar to the most engaging hypothetical scenarios, it exposed vastly opposing perspectives and life encounters, highlighted chasms between the sexes, and could easily cause a deep personal dilemma for anyone pondering on it extensively. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable follow-up in which some males took to the internet to tell women how stupid they were to select the animal and went on to limn the punishments they deserved for that choice. This at minimum allowed the women who had been hesitating over their choice to decide with a new confidence.
Dramatising the Setup
The Bear-Cooking Tale skillfully brings to life this clever small premise. The six-part series is based on Scandinavian writer Mikael Niemi’s 2018 book with the identical title (translated in 2020 for an English audience). It traces the struggles of a pastor (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his family when they arrive to begin a new ministry in Kengis, a remote village in Sweden’s north, in 1852. In a place lacking many joys, not one of the locals particularly warm to his puritanical approach to alcohol and revelry, yet it is his protection of the poor – especially the native Sami population, from among whom hails the pastor’s adopted son Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in social justice and equal rights that places him on a collision course against the Kengis local authorities.
The Opposing Forces
Soon collaborating against him include the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the fearsome factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen initially dismissing a newly injured worker with a month’s pay while he is still babbling at the sight of his pulped hand, and anyone else who profit from a populace who can be bought for a few bottles of the whisky sold by the creepy store owner Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes once travelling artist the artist Beronius appears in the story (the performer, delivering an acting turn of exceptional discomfiting power). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – only a little more than caricatures, they are at least effective ones.
Narrative Development
With the seeds of tension sown, it is time to proceed to narrative business. The servant employed by the doctor, Hilda (the actress), accordingly goes missing from the woods. Indications of her flight and animal scratches on a tree are found but she is nowhere to be seen. Gossip and anxieties of a man/maid-eating beast roaming the woodland spread, yet the clergyman holds a different view that he and Jussi set out to prove.
A Strange Creation
To Cook a Bear is a somewhat odd beast. It creates a strong impression of the desolation that lets distrust and bias and grim legends flourish from the native legend that animals can be controlled or possessed by the spirits of men. It avoids idealising the hardscrabble life experienced by the villagers, in which violence, whether that of nature or mankind, lurks constantly on the edges, poised to explode. Yet the personas rarely become beyond symbols – or perhaps, as the struggles between justice and revenge, logic and faith, good and evil intensify, representative characters in a fable – preventing the whole thing fully coming to life.
Stylistic Shifts
And then, there are the many stylistically clashing moments where the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and determine the maid’s destiny becomes nearly laughable. He stands observing broken milk pots and clumps of hair within storage sheds like a combined the Belgian detective and Sherlock Holmes – alongside Jussi a rather hapless assistant figure (none of whom had to taste a mixture of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to confirm that indeed, it was clearly coagulated blood on the site), before announcing his newest conclusion and extracting a body from a bog.
Clashing Agendas
The local leaders are determined demonstrating that the maid was killed by an animal, maybe to preserve the calm, or possibly to protect a fellow elite. The pastor is bent on establishing otherwise, and the evidence so quickly stacks up in his favour that once more the show’s credibility and the viewer’s patience get strained. In its finest moments, the series is reminiscent of the adaptation a few years ago of the author’s The Essex Serpent, with its evocation of the opposing allures and terrors presented by science and belief. At its worst, it’s more like Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Nevertheless, it appears to offer the answer to that debated question: “Females, choose the animal.”
To Cook a Bear is on Disney+ now.
