An intense discussion lately went viral across online platforms, following someone posed the question to women: which would you prefer be lost in the woods with a man or with a bear? Like all the most engaging hypothetical scenarios, it exposed vastly opposing perspectives and life encounters, illuminated divides among genders, and was likely to induce a deep personal dilemma if you thought about it for too long. Additionally, there came the predictable follow-up in which men of a certain stripe came online to inform females how foolish they were for choosing the bear and went on to describe the consequences they deserved for it. This at minimum enabled those females who had been hesitating over their choice to decide with renewed assurance.
Dramatising the Setup
The Bear-Cooking Tale skillfully dramatises this clever little setup. The six-part series is based from Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s 2018 book of the same name (translated two years later for an English audience). It follows the tribulations of a clergyman (the lead actor) and his family when they arrive to begin a fresh religious post within Kengis, a remote settlement in Sweden’s north, in 1852. Within a community lacking many joys, none of the locals especially appreciate his puritanical approach to alcohol and revelry, yet it is his defense of the poor – particularly the native Sami population, from which hails the preacher’s adopted son the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his conviction in social justice and equality that sets him on a collision course with the Kengis powers that be.
The Antagonists
Soon in cahoots opposing him include the sheriff the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the intimidating factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (the actress), seen early on dismissing a recently mangled laborer with a month’s pay as he remains gibbering upon seeing his crushed hand, and anyone else who profit from a populace easily swayed for a few bottles of the whisky provided by the unsettling shopkeeper the merchant Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). However, to be fair, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes once travelling artist Beronius appears on the scene (the performer, delivering an acting turn of rare unsettling intensity). While they remain – like the pastor himself – only a little more being stereotypes, they still serve as potent archetypes.
Plot Progression
With the seeds of tension sown, the moment arrives to proceed to narrative business. The maid employed by the doctor, Hilda (the actress), duly vanishes from the woods. Signs of her escape and bear markings on a tree are found yet she remains nowhere to be seen. Gossip and fears regarding a human-devouring bear roaming the woods 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 conjures a fine sense of the bleakness that allows suspicion and prejudice and grim legends thrive from the native legend that bears can be controlled or possessed by the spirits of humans. It avoids romanticise the hardscrabble life experienced by the villagers, where brutality, whether that of nature or mankind, lurks constantly on the edges, poised to explode. But the characters rarely become beyond symbols – or maybe, as the struggles between justice and revenge, rationality and religion, good and evil escalate, emblematic figures within a moral tale – preventing the entire production fully becoming immersive.
Stylistic Shifts
Additionally, there are numerous stylistically clashing moments where the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and discern Hilda’s fate becomes nearly laughable. He positions himself looking at shattered containers and strands of fur within storage sheds like a combined Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (neither of whom were required 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), before announcing his latest deduction and extracting a body from a bog.
Clashing Agendas
The village elite are bent on demonstrating that the maid was killed by an animal, perhaps to protect the peace, perhaps to shield a fellow elite. The pastor is intent on establishing otherwise, and the proof so quickly accumulates in his favour that again the show’s credibility and the viewer’s patience get strained. At its best, the series evokes memories of the TV version some years back of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the competing attractions and terrors presented by rational thought and religion. At its worst, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it does seem to provide the response to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”
To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ currently.
