A heated debate recently went viral across online platforms, following someone posed a query for females: which would you prefer be lost in the woods alongside a male or with a bear? Like all the most engaging hypothetical scenarios, it exposed wildly different worldviews and experiences, illuminated divides among genders, and was likely to induce an existential crisis if you thought on it for too long. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable follow-up in which some males took to the internet to inform females how foolish they had been to select the bear and proceeded to limn the consequences they deserved for that choice. This at least enabled the women who were uncertain about their decision to decide with renewed assurance.
Dramatising the Scenario
The Bear-Cooking Tale effectively dramatises this nifty little setup. This six-episode drama is based from Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s 2018 novel of the same name (rendered in 2020 for an English audience). It traces the tribulations of a clergyman (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his household when they arrive to begin a fresh religious post in Kengis, an isolated village in Sweden’s north, in 1852. In a place lacking many joys, none of the locals particularly warm to his puritanical stance on alcohol and revelry, yet it is his defense of the poor – especially the indigenous Sami, from among whom hails the preacher’s adopted son Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his belief in social justice and equal rights that places him in direct opposition against the Kengis powers that be.
The Antagonists
Quickly collaborating opposing him include the lawman the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the fearsome mill owner the matron Sjödahl (the actress), seen early on firing a recently mangled laborer with minimal compensation while he is still gibbering upon seeing of his pulped hand, and anyone else who benefit from a community easily swayed with some containers of liquor provided by the creepy store owner Lindmark (the actor). Although, to be fair, Lindmark’s eeriness pales when travelling artist Beronius arrives on the scene (Simon J Berger, delivering an acting turn of rare discomfiting power). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond than caricatures, they still serve as effective ones.
Narrative Development
With the seeds of conflict sown, it is time to proceed with the storyline. The maid employed by the doctor, Hilda (the actress), accordingly goes missing in the forest. Indications of her escape and animal scratches upon a trunk get discovered but she is nowhere to be seen. Rumours and fears of a man/maid-eating beast roaming the woods spread, but the pastor holds a different view that he and Jussi set out to prove.
A Strange Creation
This Bear Drama is a somewhat peculiar show. It conjures a fine sense of the bleakness that lets suspicion and prejudice and dark myths flourish based on local folklore that animals might be dominated or inhabited by the souls of humans. It avoids romanticise the hardscrabble life experienced by the residents, where brutality, whether that of nature or mankind, always looms at the periphery, waiting to erupt. But the characters seldom evolve more than ciphers – or maybe, while the conflicts between justice and revenge, rationality and faith, good and evil intensify, representative characters in a fable – preventing the whole thing truly becoming immersive.
Stylistic Shifts
And then, there are numerous tonally jarring instances where the pastor’s ability to discover clues and determine the maid’s destiny turns nearly laughable. He stands observing shattered containers and strands of fur in hay barns as a fusion of the Belgian detective and Sherlock Holmes – with Jussi a rather hapless Hastings-cum-Watson (none of whom had to taste a blend of blood droplets and the boss’s spit to confirm that indeed, it was definitely coagulated blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and extracting a corpse out of a swamp.
Opposing Goals
The village elite are bent on demonstrating that Hilda met her end by a bear, maybe to preserve the calm, or possibly to protect one of their own. The pastor is bent on proving the opposite, and the proof so rapidly accumulates supporting his view that again the show’s credibility and the viewer’s patience are tested. At its best, 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 competing attractions and fears offered by science and belief. In its low points, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Nevertheless, it does seem to offer the answer to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”
To Cook a Bear is on Disney+ currently.
