An intense discussion lately went viral on social media, after someone posed the question for females: would you rather find yourself stranded in the woods alongside a male or a bear? Like all the best hypothetical scenarios, it exposed wildly different perspectives and experiences, illuminated divides among genders, and was likely to induce an existential crisis for anyone pondering about it extensively. Additionally, there came the predictable follow-up in which men of a certain stripe came online to inform females how stupid they were to select the animal and went on to describe the punishments they deserved for that choice. This at minimum allowed the women who were uncertain about their decision to make it with renewed assurance.
Portraying the Scenario
The Bear-Cooking Tale effectively dramatises this nifty small premise. This six-episode series is adapted on Scandinavian writer the novelist’s 2018 book with the identical title (translated two years later for an English audience). It traces the struggles of a clergyman (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his family when they arrive to begin a new ministry within Kengis, a remote settlement in Sweden’s north, in 1852. In a place lacking many joys, none of the inhabitants especially warm to his puritanical stance on alcohol and revelry, but it is his protection of impoverished people – especially the indigenous Sami, from among whom comes the pastor’s foster child the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his conviction in social justice and equal rights that places him in direct opposition against the Kengis local authorities.
The Opposing Forces
Quickly in cahoots opposing him are the lawman Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating mill owner the matron Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed initially firing a recently mangled worker with minimal compensation as he remains babbling at the sight his crushed hand, and all others who profit from a community easily swayed for a few bottles of the whisky sold by the creepy store owner Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). However, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness pales when travelling artist the artist Beronius appears in the story (the performer, delivering an acting turn of rare unsettling intensity). While they remain – like the pastor himself – just slightly beyond than caricatures, they are at least potent archetypes.
Plot Progression
With the seeds of tension sown, the moment arrives to get down with the storyline. The maid employed by the doctor, Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), accordingly goes missing from the woods. Signs of her flight and animal scratches on a tree get discovered yet she remains completely absent. Gossip and fears of a man/maid-eating bear roaming the woods circulate, yet the clergyman holds a different view which he and his ward embark to prove.
A Strange Creation
To Cook a Bear is a slightly odd beast. It creates a fine sense of the bleakness that lets suspicion and prejudice and dark myths thrive 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 villagers, where violence, whether that of the wild or people, always looms on the edges, poised to explode. Yet the personas rarely become beyond symbols – or maybe, while the conflicts amid fairness and vengeance, rationality and faith, good and evil intensify, representative characters in a fable – preventing the whole thing truly becoming immersive.
Stylistic Shifts
Additionally, there are numerous tonally jarring instances where the pastor’s ability to discover clues and determine Hilda’s fate turns almost risible. He stands observing broken milk pots and clumps of hair within storage sheds as a fusion of Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – with Jussi a rather hapless Hastings-cum-Watson (neither of whom were required to taste a mixture of blood droplets and the boss’s spit to agree that indeed, it was clearly dried blood at the crime scene), before announcing his latest deduction and extracting a body from a bog.
Clashing Agendas
The local leaders are determined demonstrating that the maid met her end by a bear, perhaps to protect the peace, perhaps to protect one of their own. The pastor is bent on establishing otherwise, and the proof so rapidly accumulates supporting his view that once more the show’s credibility and the viewer’s patience are tested. At its best, the series is reminiscent of the adaptation some years back of the author’s The Essex Serpent, through its portrayal of the opposing attractions and terrors presented by rational thought and religion. At its worst, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it appears to offer the answer to that debated question: “Ladies, take the bear.”
To Cook a Bear is on Disney+ currently.
