An heated discussion recently went viral across online platforms, following a user asked the question for females: would you rather find yourself stranded in the woods with a man or with a bear? Similar to the most engaging thought experiments, it revealed wildly different perspectives and experiences, highlighted divides among genders, and was likely to induce an existential crisis for anyone pondering about it extensively. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable coda in which some males came online to inform women how foolish they had been for choosing the animal and went on to describe the consequences they deserved for that choice. This at minimum enabled the women who had been hesitating about their decision to make it with a new confidence.
Portraying the Scenario
The Bear-Cooking Tale effectively brings to life this nifty little setup. This six-episode drama is adapted from Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s 2018 novel of the same name (translated two years later for English readers). It traces the tribulations of a pastor (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his family when they arrive to begin a new ministry in Kengis, a remote village in Sweden’s north, during the mid-19th century. In a place with few pleasures, not one of the inhabitants especially appreciate his strict approach to alcohol and dancing, yet it is his defense of the poor – especially the native Sami population, from among whom hails the pastor’s adopted son Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his belief in societal fairness and equal rights that places him in direct opposition against the Kengis powers that be.
The Opposing Forces
Quickly in cahoots opposing him include the sheriff the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the fearsome mill owner Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed early on firing a newly injured worker with minimal compensation while he is still gibbering upon seeing of his pulped hand, and anyone else who benefit from a populace easily swayed with some containers of liquor sold by the creepy store owner the merchant Lindmark (the actor). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness pales when itinerant painter Beronius appears in the story (Simon J Berger, providing an acting turn of exceptional unsettling intensity). While they remain – like the pastor himself – only a little more than caricatures, 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), duly vanishes in the forest. Indications of her escape and bear markings on a tree get discovered yet she remains nowhere to be seen. Rumours and anxieties regarding a human-devouring bear roaming the woodland circulate, yet the clergyman has another theory that he and Jussi set out to prove.
A Strange Creation
This Bear Drama is a slightly odd beast. It conjures a fine sense of the bleakness that allows distrust and bias and dark myths flourish based on local folklore that animals can be controlled or inhabited by the souls of humans. And it doesn’t idealising the tough existence led by the residents, where brutality, whether that of nature or mankind, always looms on the edges, waiting to erupt. But the characters rarely become more than ciphers – or perhaps, as the struggles amid fairness and vengeance, logic and religion, virtue and wickedness intensify, representative characters in a fable – preventing the whole thing truly coming to life.
Tonal Inconsistencies
Additionally, there are the many tonally jarring moments where the pastor’s ability to discover clues and determine Hilda’s fate turns almost risible. He stands observing shattered containers and clumps of hair within storage sheds like a combined the Belgian detective the English sleuth – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (neither of whom were required to lick a mixture of blood spatter and the boss’s spit to agree that, yes, it was definitely coagulated blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and extracting a body out of a swamp.
Clashing Agendas
The village elite are determined demonstrating that Hilda was killed by an animal, maybe to protect the peace, or possibly to protect one of their own. The clergyman is bent on establishing otherwise, and the evidence so rapidly stacks up in his favour that once more the show’s credibility and audience tolerance 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, with its evocation of the opposing attractions and terrors offered by science and religion. In its low points, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Nevertheless, it appears to offer the answer to the earlier query: “Females, choose the animal.”
The series streams on Disney+ currently.
