A heated debate recently spread widely on social media, after a user asked a query to women: would you rather be lost in a forest alongside a male or a bear? Like all the most engaging thought experiments, it revealed wildly different perspectives and experiences, illuminated chasms between the sexes, and was likely to induce an existential crisis if you thought on it extensively. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable follow-up in which some males took to the internet to tell women how stupid they had been to select the bear and went on to describe the punishments they merited for that choice. This at minimum enabled the women who were uncertain over their choice to decide with a new confidence.
Dramatising the Scenario
The Bear-Cooking Tale skillfully brings to life this nifty small premise. The six-part drama is adapted from Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s 2018 novel with the identical title (rendered two years later for an English audience). It follows the tribulations of a clergyman (the lead actor) and his household as they come to start a fresh religious post within Kengis, an isolated village in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. In a place lacking many joys, not one of the locals especially appreciate his puritanical approach to drinking and revelry, yet it is his protection of the poor – especially the indigenous Sami, from among whom hails the pastor’s adopted son the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his belief in societal fairness and equality that places him in direct opposition against the Kengis powers that be.
The Antagonists
Quickly in cahoots against him include the lawman Brahe (the performer), the intimidating factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (the actress), seen initially dismissing a recently mangled laborer with a month’s pay while he is still gibbering at the sight his crushed hand, and all others who benefit from a populace who can be bought for a few bottles of liquor sold by the creepy shopkeeper Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). However, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes when itinerant painter the artist Beronius arrives on the scene (the performer, providing a performance of rare discomfiting power). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, they still serve as effective ones.
Plot Progression
Once the foundations of conflict sown, the moment arrives to proceed with the storyline. The servant employed by the doctor, the character Hilda (the actress), duly vanishes in the forest. Indications of her escape and animal scratches on a tree get discovered yet she remains completely absent. Gossip and fears of a man/maid-eating bear roaming the woodland circulate, yet the clergyman has another theory that he and Jussi set out to verify.
A Strange Creation
To Cook a Bear is a slightly peculiar show. It creates a fine sense of the desolation that allows suspicion and bias and dark myths thrive based on local folklore that animals can be controlled or possessed by the souls of humans. And it doesn’t romanticise the tough existence experienced by the residents, where brutality, whether that of nature or mankind, lurks constantly at the periphery, poised to explode. But the characters rarely become more than ciphers – or maybe, as the struggles between justice and vengeance, rationality and religion, good and evil escalate, emblematic figures within a moral tale – preventing the whole thing fully coming to life.
Tonal Inconsistencies
And then, there are numerous stylistically clashing moments where the clergyman’s skill to discover clues and discern the maid’s destiny becomes almost risible. He stands looking at broken milk pots and clumps of hair within storage sheds like a combined the Belgian detective and Sherlock Holmes – with Jussi a rather hapless assistant figure (neither of whom had to taste a mixture of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to agree that indeed, it was definitely dried blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his latest deduction and pulling a body out of a swamp.
Clashing Agendas
The village elite are determined demonstrating that Hilda was killed by an animal, perhaps to preserve the peace, or possibly to shield a fellow elite. The pastor is bent on proving otherwise, and the proof so rapidly stacks up in his favour that again the drama’s plausibility and the viewer’s patience are tested. In its finest moments, To Cook a Bear is reminiscent of the adaptation a few years ago of the author’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the opposing allures and terrors presented by rational thought and belief. At its worst, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it appears to offer the answer to the earlier query: “Females, choose the animal.”
To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ currently.
