A intense debate recently spread widely across online platforms, after someone asked the question for females: would you rather find yourself stranded in the woods alongside a male or with a bear? Similar to the best thought experiments, it exposed vastly opposing worldviews and experiences, illuminated divides between the sexes, and could easily to induce an existential crisis if you thought on it for too long. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable follow-up where men of a certain stripe took to the internet to tell females how stupid they were for choosing the bear and went on to describe the punishments they deserved for it. This at least enabled those females who had been hesitating over their choice to make it with a new confidence.
Portraying the Scenario
The Bear-Cooking Tale effectively brings to life this clever small premise. The six-part series is adapted from Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s 2018 book with the identical title (translated in 2020 for an English audience). It traces the tribulations of a pastor (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his family as they come to begin a fresh religious post in Kengis, a remote settlement in Sweden’s north, during the mid-19th century. In a place with few pleasures, none of the locals particularly warm to his strict stance on alcohol and revelry, yet it is his protection of impoverished people – especially the indigenous Sami, from which hails the pastor’s foster child Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in social justice and equality that places him in direct opposition against the Kengis local authorities.
The Antagonists
Soon in cahoots opposing him are the sheriff the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating mill owner Madam Sjödahl (the actress), observed initially firing a recently mangled worker with a month’s pay as he remains gibbering upon seeing of his pulped hand, and anyone else who profit from a populace who can be bought for a few bottles of liquor provided by the creepy shopkeeper the merchant Lindmark (the actor). However, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness pales once travelling artist Beronius arrives in the story (Simon J Berger, providing a performance of exceptional unsettling intensity). While they remain – like the pastor himself – only a little more than caricatures, they are at least potent archetypes.
Plot Progression
With the seeds of tension planted, it is time to proceed with the storyline. The maid employed by the doctor, Hilda (the actress), duly vanishes in the forest. Indications of her flight and animal scratches upon a trunk get discovered but she is nowhere to be seen. Rumours and anxieties of a man/maid-eating bear prowling the woodland spread, but the pastor has another theory which he and his ward embark to prove.
An Odd Beast
To Cook a Bear is a somewhat peculiar show. It conjures a fine sense of the desolation that allows distrust and prejudice and grim legends thrive based on local folklore that animals can be controlled or inhabited by the souls of humans. It avoids romanticise the tough existence led by the villagers, where violence, be it from nature or people, always looms on the edges, waiting to erupt. Yet the personas seldom evolve more than ciphers – or maybe, while the conflicts between justice and vengeance, logic and faith, virtue and evil intensify, representative characters within a moral tale – which stops the entire production fully becoming immersive.
Tonal Inconsistencies
Additionally, exist the many stylistically clashing moments where the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and determine Hilda’s fate becomes nearly laughable. He stands looking at shattered containers and strands of fur within storage sheds as a fusion of the Belgian detective and Sherlock Holmes – with Jussi a rather hapless Hastings-cum-Watson (none of whom had to lick a mixture of blood spatter and the boss’s spit to confirm that indeed, it was clearly coagulated blood on the site), before announcing his latest deduction and extracting a corpse out of a swamp.
Opposing Goals
The local leaders are determined proving that Hilda met her end by an animal, perhaps to preserve the peace, perhaps to protect a fellow elite. The clergyman is intent on proving otherwise, and the evidence so rapidly accumulates supporting his view that again the show’s credibility and audience tolerance get strained. In its finest moments, the series is reminiscent of the TV version some years back of the author’s The Essex Serpent, with its evocation of the opposing attractions and terrors offered by rational thought and belief. At its worst, it resembles a bear-themed police procedural. Still, it does seem to provide the answer to the earlier query: “Females, choose the animal.”
To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ currently.
