An heated debate recently spread widely across online platforms, following a user asked the question for females: would you rather be lost in a forest with a man or with a bear? Like all the most engaging thought experiments, it revealed vastly opposing worldviews and experiences, illuminated chasms among genders, and was likely cause an existential crisis for anyone pondering about it extensively. There was also the predictable follow-up where men of a certain stripe came online to inform women how foolish they had been for choosing the bear and proceeded to describe the consequences they merited for it. This at minimum allowed the women who were uncertain about their decision to make it with renewed assurance.
Dramatising the Scenario
The Bear-Cooking Tale skillfully dramatises this nifty small premise. The six-part series is adapted on Scandinavian writer the novelist’s 2018 book of the same name (translated two years later for an English audience). It follows the tribulations of a pastor (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his household as they come to start a fresh religious post within Kengis, an isolated settlement in Sweden’s north, in 1852. Within a community lacking many joys, none of the locals particularly appreciate his puritanical stance on alcohol and dancing, but it is his protection of the poor – especially the indigenous Sami, from which comes the preacher’s foster child the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his belief in social justice and equality that sets him on a collision course against the Kengis local authorities.
The Opposing Forces
Soon collaborating opposing him are the lawman Brahe (the performer), the intimidating factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (the actress), observed initially firing a recently mangled laborer with a month’s pay as he remains babbling upon seeing of his pulped hand, and all others who benefit from a populace who can be bought for a few bottles of liquor provided by the creepy shopkeeper Lindmark (the actor). However, to be fair, Lindmark’s creepiness pales once itinerant painter the artist Beronius appears in the story (Simon J Berger, delivering a performance of rare discomfiting power). If they are – like the pastor himself – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, they are at least effective ones.
Plot Progression
With the seeds of tension planted, it is time to get down with the storyline. The maid employed by the doctor, Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), duly goes missing from the woods. Signs of her flight and animal scratches upon a trunk are found yet she remains completely absent. Gossip and fears regarding a human-devouring bear prowling the woodland spread, but the pastor holds a different view that he and Jussi set out to verify.
A Strange Creation
To Cook a Bear is a somewhat odd beast. It creates a strong impression of the desolation that allows suspicion and prejudice and dark myths thrive from the native legend that bears can be controlled or possessed by the spirits of humans. It avoids romanticise the hardscrabble life led by the residents, in which brutality, be it from nature or people, always looms at the periphery, poised to explode. Yet the personas rarely become beyond symbols – or maybe, while the conflicts between justice and revenge, logic and faith, good and evil escalate, representative characters in a fable – preventing the entire production truly becoming immersive.
Tonal Inconsistencies
Additionally, there are numerous stylistically clashing moments where the pastor’s ability to discover clues and discern the maid’s destiny turns nearly laughable. He positions himself observing broken milk pots and strands of fur within storage sheds as a fusion of Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – alongside Jussi a rather hapless assistant figure (neither of whom had to lick a blend of blood droplets and the boss’s spit to confirm that indeed, it was clearly dried blood at the crime scene), before announcing his newest conclusion and pulling a corpse from a bog.
Opposing Goals
The local leaders are determined demonstrating that Hilda met her end by a bear, maybe to protect the peace, perhaps to protect a fellow elite. The clergyman is bent on proving otherwise, and the evidence so quickly stacks up supporting his view that again the show’s credibility and audience tolerance are tested. At its best, To Cook a Bear evokes memories of the TV version a few years ago of the author’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the opposing attractions and terrors presented by rational thought and belief. At its worst, it resembles a bear-themed police procedural. Nevertheless, it does seem to provide the answer to that debated question: “Ladies, take the bear.”
To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ currently.
