A intense debate lately spread widely on social media, following someone posed a query to women: which would you prefer 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 among genders, and could easily to induce a deep personal dilemma for anyone pondering on it extensively. Additionally, there came the predictable follow-up in which some males came online to inform females how foolish they had been for choosing the animal and went on to describe the punishments they deserved for that choice. This at minimum enabled those females who were uncertain over their choice to make it with renewed assurance.
Portraying the Setup
The Bear-Cooking Tale skillfully brings to life this clever little setup. The six-part series is based from Scandinavian writer the novelist’s 2018 novel with the identical title (rendered in 2020 for English readers). It traces the tribulations of a clergyman (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his family when they arrive to start a new ministry within Kengis, an isolated settlement in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. Within a community lacking many joys, not one of the inhabitants especially warm to his strict stance on drinking and revelry, but it is his protection of impoverished people – especially the native Sami population, from among whom hails the preacher’s foster child the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in societal fairness and equality that places him in direct opposition with the Kengis powers that be.
The Opposing Forces
Soon collaborating opposing him include the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed early on dismissing a recently mangled worker with a month’s pay while he is still gibbering at the sight of his pulped hand, and all others who profit from a community who can be bought for a few bottles of the whisky provided by the unsettling shopkeeper Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness pales when itinerant painter the artist Beronius appears in the story (Simon J Berger, delivering an acting turn of rare discomfiting power). If they are – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond than caricatures, they are at least effective ones.
Narrative Development
Once the foundations of tension sown, the moment arrives to get down with the storyline. The maid employed by the doctor, Hilda (the actress), duly goes missing in the forest. Indications of her flight and animal scratches on a tree get discovered yet she remains nowhere to be seen. Rumours and anxieties of a man/maid-eating beast prowling the woods circulate, yet the clergyman has another theory which he and his ward embark to verify.
A Strange Creation
To Cook a Bear is a slightly peculiar show. It creates a fine sense of the desolation that lets suspicion and bias and dark myths flourish from the native legend that animals can be controlled or possessed by the spirits of humans. It avoids idealising the tough existence led by the villagers, in which violence, be it from nature or mankind, lurks constantly at the periphery, poised to explode. But the characters rarely become more than ciphers – or maybe, while the conflicts between justice and vengeance, logic and religion, virtue and evil intensify, emblematic figures within a moral tale – which stops the whole thing truly becoming immersive.
Stylistic Shifts
And then, there are the many tonally jarring moments in which the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and discern Hilda’s fate turns nearly laughable. He positions himself observing broken milk pots and clumps of hair within storage sheds as a fusion of Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – alongside Jussi a rather hapless assistant figure (none of whom were required to lick a mixture of blood droplets and the boss’s spit to agree that indeed, it was definitely dried blood on the site), prior to declaring his latest deduction and extracting 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 intent on proving otherwise, and the proof so rapidly accumulates supporting his view that again the show’s credibility and the viewer’s patience get strained. In its finest moments, To Cook a Bear is reminiscent of the TV version a few years ago of the author’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the opposing attractions and fears presented by science and religion. In its low points, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it appears to offer the response to the earlier query: “Females, choose the animal.”
The series streams on Disney+ now.
