A heated discussion lately went viral across online platforms, following someone posed a query for females: would you rather be lost in the woods with a man or a bear? Similar to the most engaging thought experiments, it revealed vastly opposing perspectives and experiences, illuminated chasms among genders, and could easily cause a deep personal dilemma for anyone pondering about it extensively. There was also the almost inevitable follow-up where some males took to the internet to tell females how stupid they had been for choosing the animal and proceeded to describe the punishments they deserved for that choice. This at least allowed the women who had been hesitating over their choice to decide with renewed assurance.
Dramatising the Setup
The Bear-Cooking Tale effectively dramatises this clever little setup. 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 traces the tribulations of a clergyman (the lead actor) and his household as they come to begin a fresh religious post in Kengis, a remote village in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. In a place with few pleasures, none of the inhabitants especially warm to his strict approach to alcohol and dancing, yet it is his protection of the poor – especially the native Sami population, from which hails the preacher’s foster child the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his conviction in societal fairness and equality that sets him on a collision course with the Kengis local authorities.
The Antagonists
Soon in cahoots against him are the lawman the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the fearsome mill owner the matron Sjödahl (the actress), observed initially firing a recently mangled worker with minimal compensation as he remains gibbering upon seeing his crushed hand, and all others who profit from a community easily swayed for a few bottles of the whisky sold by the unsettling shopkeeper the merchant Lindmark (the actor). However, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness pales once travelling artist Beronius arrives in the story (Simon J Berger, providing an acting turn of exceptional unsettling intensity). If they are – similar to the clergyman – only a little more than caricatures, they are at least potent archetypes.
Narrative Development
With the seeds of conflict planted, it is time to proceed to narrative business. The maid employed by the doctor, Hilda (the actress), duly goes missing in the forest. Indications of her escape and animal scratches upon a trunk are found yet she remains completely absent. Rumours 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 verify.
A Strange Creation
To Cook a Bear is a slightly odd beast. It conjures a strong impression of the bleakness that allows suspicion and prejudice and grim legends flourish from the native legend that animals might be dominated or possessed by the souls of men. It avoids idealising the tough existence led by the residents, in which brutality, be it from nature or people, lurks constantly at the periphery, waiting to erupt. Yet the personas seldom evolve beyond symbols – or maybe, while the conflicts amid fairness and revenge, rationality and religion, good and evil escalate, emblematic figures within a moral tale – which stops the entire production truly becoming immersive.
Stylistic Shifts
And then, exist the many stylistically clashing moments where the pastor’s ability to discover clues and determine the maid’s destiny becomes almost risible. He stands looking at broken milk pots and clumps of hair in hay barns as a fusion of Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (none of whom were required to taste a mixture of blood spatter and the boss’s spit to confirm that, yes, it was definitely dried blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and pulling a body out of a swamp.
Clashing Agendas
The local leaders are determined demonstrating that Hilda was killed by a bear, maybe to preserve the peace, perhaps to shield one of their own. The pastor is intent on establishing the opposite, and the evidence so quickly stacks up supporting his view that again the drama’s plausibility and the viewer’s patience get strained. At its best, To Cook a Bear evokes memories of the adaptation a few years ago of the author’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the opposing allures and terrors presented by rational thought and belief. In its low points, it resembles a bear-themed police procedural. Still, it appears to offer the response to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”
The series streams on Disney+ currently.
