A intense debate lately went viral on social media, following a user asked the question for females: which would you prefer be lost in a forest with a man or with a bear? Like all the best thought experiments, it revealed vastly opposing worldviews and experiences, highlighted chasms between the sexes, and could easily to induce an existential crisis if you thought about it for too long. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable follow-up in which some males came online to inform women how foolish they had been to select the bear and went on to limn the punishments they merited for it. This at least allowed the women who were uncertain over their choice to make it with renewed assurance.
Dramatising the Scenario
The Bear-Cooking Tale effectively brings to life this clever small premise. This six-episode series is adapted from Scandinavian writer 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 household as they come to begin a new ministry within Kengis, an isolated village in Sweden’s north, in 1852. In a place lacking many joys, not one of the inhabitants particularly warm to his strict stance on drinking and revelry, but it is his defense of impoverished people – especially the native Sami population, from which comes the preacher’s adopted son Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his belief in societal fairness and equal rights that sets him in direct opposition with the Kengis powers that be.
The Opposing Forces
Quickly collaborating opposing him are the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating mill owner the matron Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed early on dismissing a recently mangled laborer with a month’s pay while he is still babbling at the sight his crushed hand, and anyone else who profit from a community who can be bought with some containers of the whisky sold by the unsettling shopkeeper the merchant Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). However, to be fair, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes when itinerant painter the artist Beronius arrives in the story (Simon J Berger, delivering an acting turn of exceptional unsettling intensity). While they remain – like the pastor himself – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, they are at least potent archetypes.
Narrative Development
Once the foundations of tension planted, it is time to get down with the storyline. The servant employed by the doctor, the character Hilda (the actress), accordingly vanishes in the forest. Signs of her escape and animal scratches upon a trunk get discovered yet she remains completely absent. Gossip and fears of a man/maid-eating bear prowling the woods spread, yet the clergyman has another theory which he and his ward set out to verify.
An Odd Beast
To Cook a Bear is a somewhat odd beast. It conjures a strong impression of the bleakness that allows suspicion and prejudice and dark myths flourish based on local folklore that bears might be dominated or possessed by the spirits of humans. And it doesn’t romanticise the tough existence led by the villagers, in which violence, be it from the wild or mankind, lurks constantly at the periphery, waiting to erupt. But the characters rarely become beyond symbols – or perhaps, while the conflicts between justice and vengeance, rationality and faith, virtue and evil intensify, emblematic figures within a moral tale – preventing the entire production fully coming to life.
Tonal Inconsistencies
And then, exist numerous tonally jarring instances where the clergyman’s skill to discover clues and determine the maid’s destiny becomes nearly laughable. He stands observing broken milk pots and clumps of hair in hay barns as a fusion of Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – with Jussi a rather hapless assistant figure (neither of whom were required to taste a blend of blood spatter and the boss’s spit to confirm that, yes, it was clearly coagulated blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and extracting a body from a bog.
Clashing Agendas
The local leaders are determined demonstrating that the maid met her end by an animal, perhaps to protect the peace, perhaps to shield a fellow elite. The pastor is intent on establishing the opposite, and the proof so rapidly accumulates supporting his view that once more the show’s credibility and the viewer’s patience get strained. At its best, To Cook a Bear evokes memories of the TV version a few years ago of the author’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the competing allures and fears offered by science and religion. At its worst, it’s more like a bear-themed police procedural. Still, it does seem to offer the response to the earlier query: “Females, choose the animal.”
The series is on Disney+ now.
