A heated discussion recently went viral across online platforms, following someone posed the question for females: would you rather find yourself stranded in a forest alongside a male or a bear? Similar to the best hypothetical scenarios, it exposed wildly different worldviews and experiences, illuminated chasms among genders, and was likely to induce a deep personal dilemma if you thought on it for too long. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable coda in which men of a certain stripe came online to inform females how stupid they had been for choosing the bear and proceeded to describe the consequences they merited for it. This at least allowed the women who were uncertain about their decision to decide with renewed assurance.
Dramatising the Setup
The Bear-Cooking Tale effectively brings to life this nifty little setup. The six-part series is based from Scandinavian writer the novelist’s 2018 book with the identical title (rendered two years later for an English audience). It traces the struggles of a pastor (the lead actor) and his family as they come to begin a new ministry in Kengis, an isolated settlement in Sweden’s north, in 1852. In a place with few pleasures, none of the inhabitants particularly warm to his puritanical stance on alcohol and dancing, but it is his defense of impoverished people – particularly the indigenous Sami, from among whom comes the preacher’s foster child the youth 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 Antagonists
Soon in cahoots opposing him include the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the intimidating factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (the actress), observed initially firing a recently mangled laborer with a month’s pay while he is still gibbering at the sight his crushed hand, and all others who profit from a community easily swayed with some containers of the whisky sold by the creepy shopkeeper Lindmark (the actor). However, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes once travelling artist the artist Beronius appears in the story (the performer, providing a performance of rare discomfiting power). If they are – like the pastor himself – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, they are at least effective ones.
Plot Progression
With the seeds of conflict sown, it is time to proceed to narrative business. The servant employed by the doctor, Hilda (the actress), accordingly goes missing from the woods. Indications of her escape and animal scratches on a tree are found yet she remains nowhere to be seen. Rumours and anxieties of a man/maid-eating beast prowling the woods circulate, yet the clergyman holds a different view which he and his ward set out to prove.
A Strange Creation
To Cook a Bear is a somewhat odd beast. It conjures a strong impression of the desolation that allows distrust and bias and grim legends thrive 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 people, always looms on the edges, waiting to erupt. But the characters seldom evolve beyond symbols – or perhaps, as the struggles between justice and vengeance, rationality and faith, virtue and evil intensify, representative characters within a moral tale – preventing the whole thing fully becoming immersive.
Tonal Inconsistencies
Additionally, exist numerous stylistically clashing moments in which the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and determine Hilda’s fate turns almost risible. He stands observing shattered containers and clumps of hair in hay barns as a fusion of Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (none of whom had to lick a mixture of blood droplets and the boss’s spit to confirm that indeed, it was definitely dried blood on the site), before announcing his latest deduction and extracting a body out of a swamp.
Clashing Agendas
The village elite are bent on demonstrating that Hilda was killed by an animal, perhaps to protect the calm, or possibly to shield one of their own. The clergyman is intent on establishing the opposite, and the proof so quickly accumulates in his favour that once more the show’s credibility and audience tolerance are tested. At its best, To Cook a Bear is reminiscent of the adaptation a few years ago of the author’s The Essex Serpent, with its evocation of the competing attractions and fears offered by science and belief. In its low points, it resembles a bear-themed police procedural. Nevertheless, it does seem to offer the answer to that debated question: “Ladies, take the bear.”
To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ now.
