An intense discussion lately went viral across online platforms, following a user posed the question to women: would you rather be lost in a forest alongside a male or with a bear? Similar to the best thought experiments, it exposed vastly opposing perspectives and life encounters, illuminated chasms among genders, and could easily to induce a deep personal dilemma if you thought on it extensively. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable coda in which some males came online to tell women how foolish they had been for choosing the animal and went on to limn the consequences they deserved for that choice. This at minimum enabled those females who were uncertain about their decision to decide with a new confidence.
Portraying the Scenario
The Bear-Cooking Tale effectively brings to life this clever little setup. This six-episode drama is adapted on 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 (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his family when they arrive to begin a new ministry within Kengis, an isolated settlement in Sweden’s north, in 1852. Within a community lacking many joys, none of the inhabitants particularly appreciate his puritanical stance on alcohol and revelry, but it is his defense of the poor – particularly the indigenous Sami, from which comes the pastor’s adopted son the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his conviction in societal fairness and equality that places him in direct opposition against the Kengis local authorities.
The Antagonists
Quickly collaborating against him are the sheriff the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the intimidating mill owner the matron Sjödahl (the actress), seen early on firing a newly injured laborer 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 easily swayed for a few bottles of liquor provided by the unsettling shopkeeper the merchant Lindmark (the actor). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness pales when itinerant painter the artist Beronius appears on the scene (the performer, delivering a performance of rare unsettling intensity). If they are – similar to the clergyman – only a little more being stereotypes, they are at least effective ones.
Narrative Development
With the seeds of tension planted, it is time to get down with the storyline. The servant employed by the doctor, the character Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), accordingly vanishes from the woods. Indications of her flight and bear markings upon a trunk get discovered yet she remains nowhere to be seen. Gossip and anxieties regarding a human-devouring beast prowling the woodland circulate, but the pastor has another theory which he and his ward set out to verify.
A Strange Creation
To Cook a Bear is a slightly odd beast. It conjures a strong impression of the bleakness that lets suspicion and bias and grim legends flourish based on local folklore that animals can be controlled or inhabited by the spirits of humans. It avoids idealising the tough existence led by the residents, in which brutality, be it from nature or people, lurks constantly at the periphery, poised to explode. But the characters seldom evolve beyond symbols – or perhaps, as the struggles between justice and revenge, rationality and religion, virtue and evil escalate, emblematic figures within a moral tale – preventing the entire production fully coming to life.
Stylistic Shifts
Additionally, exist the many stylistically clashing moments in which the pastor’s ability to discover clues and discern Hilda’s fate turns nearly laughable. He positions himself observing shattered containers and strands of fur within storage sheds as a fusion of the Belgian detective and Sherlock Holmes – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (neither of whom had to taste a mixture of blood droplets and the boss’s spit to agree that indeed, it was clearly coagulated blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his latest deduction and extracting a body from a bog.
Opposing Goals
The village elite are determined demonstrating that Hilda met her end by a bear, perhaps to preserve the peace, perhaps to shield one of their own. The pastor is bent on establishing the opposite, and the evidence so quickly accumulates supporting his view that again the show’s credibility and audience tolerance are tested. At its best, To Cook a Bear evokes memories of the TV version a few years ago of the author’s The Essex Serpent, through its portrayal of the opposing attractions and terrors presented by science and religion. At its worst, it’s more like a bear-themed police procedural. Still, it appears to offer the response to that debated question: “Females, choose the animal.”
The series is on Disney+ now.
