An heated discussion recently spread widely on social media, after someone posed the question to women: would you rather be lost in the woods alongside a male or with a bear? Like all the best thought experiments, it revealed wildly different perspectives and experiences, highlighted divides among genders, and was likely to induce a deep personal dilemma if you thought on it extensively. There was also the almost inevitable coda in which some males took to the internet to tell females how stupid they were for choosing the animal and proceeded to limn the consequences they deserved for that choice. This at least enabled those females who were uncertain over their choice to decide with renewed assurance.
Portraying the Scenario
The Bear-Cooking Tale skillfully brings to life this nifty little setup. This six-episode drama is based from Swedish author the novelist’s 2018 novel with the identical title (rendered in 2020 for an English audience). It traces the tribulations of a clergyman (the lead actor) and his household as they come to begin a fresh religious post in Kengis, an isolated village in Sweden’s north, during the mid-19th century. In a place with few pleasures, not one of the inhabitants especially warm to his puritanical approach to drinking and dancing, yet it is his defense of the poor – particularly the indigenous Sami, from which hails the preacher’s adopted son Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his conviction in societal fairness and equal rights that places him on a collision course with the Kengis powers that be.
The Antagonists
Quickly in cahoots opposing him are the lawman Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating mill owner the matron Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed initially firing a recently mangled worker with a month’s pay as he remains gibbering at the sight his crushed hand, and anyone else who profit from a community who can be bought for a few bottles of the whisky provided by the creepy shopkeeper the merchant Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). However, to be fair, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes once travelling artist the artist Beronius arrives in the story (Simon J Berger, delivering a performance of rare discomfiting power). While they remain – like the pastor himself – only a little more being stereotypes, they are at least effective ones.
Narrative Development
Once the foundations of tension sown, the moment arrives to get down to narrative business. The maid from the doctor’s house, the character Hilda (the actress), accordingly vanishes from the woods. Signs of her escape and animal scratches upon a trunk get discovered yet she remains nowhere to be seen. Gossip and fears regarding a human-devouring beast prowling the woods circulate, yet the clergyman has another theory that he and Jussi 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 suspicion and bias and dark myths thrive from the native legend that bears can be controlled or possessed by the souls of humans. It avoids idealising the tough existence led by the villagers, where violence, be it from nature or mankind, always looms on the edges, poised to explode. Yet the personas seldom evolve more than ciphers – or perhaps, while the conflicts amid fairness and vengeance, logic and faith, good and wickedness escalate, representative characters within a moral tale – preventing the entire production truly becoming immersive.
Tonal Inconsistencies
And then, there are the many tonally jarring instances where the clergyman’s skill to discover clues and determine Hilda’s fate becomes almost risible. He stands observing shattered containers and strands of fur within storage sheds like a combined Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – alongside Jussi a rather hapless assistant figure (none of whom had to lick a blend of blood droplets and saliva from his superior to confirm that, yes, it was definitely coagulated blood at the crime scene), before announcing his newest conclusion and extracting a body from a bog.
Opposing Goals
The local leaders are bent on proving that Hilda met her end by an animal, maybe to protect the peace, or possibly to protect a fellow elite. The clergyman is bent on establishing the opposite, and the proof so rapidly accumulates supporting his view that once more the drama’s plausibility and audience tolerance get strained. At its best, To Cook a Bear evokes memories of the adaptation some years back of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the opposing attractions and terrors offered by rational thought and belief. In its low points, it’s more like Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Nevertheless, it does seem to provide the response to the earlier query: “Females, choose the animal.”
To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ currently.
