A intense debate lately spread widely across online platforms, following a user posed a query for females: which would you prefer find yourself stranded in the woods alongside a male or with a bear? Like all the most engaging thought experiments, it exposed vastly opposing perspectives and experiences, highlighted divides among genders, and was likely cause an existential crisis if you thought on it for too long. There was also the predictable follow-up in which men of a certain stripe took to the internet to inform women how foolish they were for choosing the animal and went on to limn the punishments they merited for that choice. This at minimum enabled the women who were uncertain about their decision to decide with renewed assurance.
Portraying the Setup
The Bear-Cooking Tale skillfully dramatises this clever little setup. This six-episode series is based on Scandinavian writer Mikael Niemi’s 2018 book of the same name (translated in 2020 for an English audience). It traces the struggles of a pastor (the lead actor) and his household when they arrive to start a fresh religious post in Kengis, a remote village in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. In a place lacking many joys, none of the locals particularly appreciate his strict stance on drinking and dancing, yet it is his protection of the poor – especially the native Sami population, from among whom hails the pastor’s adopted son the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his conviction in social justice and equality that sets him in direct opposition with the Kengis powers that be.
The Antagonists
Soon collaborating opposing him include the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the intimidating factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (the actress), observed early on firing a recently mangled laborer with a month’s pay as he remains gibbering at the sight his crushed hand, and all others who profit from a community who can be bought with some containers of the whisky sold by the creepy store owner the merchant Lindmark (the actor). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes when itinerant painter Beronius appears in the story (the performer, delivering a performance of exceptional unsettling intensity). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond than caricatures, they still serve as potent archetypes.
Plot Progression
With the seeds of conflict sown, the moment arrives to get down to narrative business. The maid from the doctor’s house, the character Hilda (the actress), accordingly goes missing in the forest. Signs of her flight and bear markings upon a trunk are found but she is nowhere to be seen. Rumours and anxieties regarding a human-devouring beast prowling the woods circulate, but the pastor holds a different view which he and his ward set out to prove.
An Odd Beast
To Cook a Bear is a slightly peculiar show. It creates a strong impression of the bleakness that allows distrust and prejudice and grim legends flourish based on local folklore that animals can be controlled or inhabited by the souls of men. It avoids idealising the hardscrabble life led by the villagers, in which violence, whether that of nature or mankind, always looms on the edges, waiting to erupt. But the characters seldom evolve more than ciphers – or perhaps, while the conflicts amid fairness and revenge, logic and faith, good and evil escalate, emblematic figures in a fable – preventing the whole thing truly becoming immersive.
Stylistic Shifts
Additionally, exist numerous tonally jarring instances in which the clergyman’s skill to discover clues and determine Hilda’s fate turns nearly laughable. He stands observing broken milk pots and clumps of hair within storage sheds like a combined Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – alongside Jussi a rather hapless assistant figure (neither of whom had to lick a mixture of blood droplets and saliva from his superior to confirm that, yes, it was clearly dried blood on the site), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and pulling a body out of a swamp.
Opposing Goals
The local leaders are determined demonstrating that the maid was killed by a bear, perhaps to preserve the calm, or possibly to protect a fellow elite. The pastor is bent on proving the opposite, and the evidence so rapidly stacks up supporting his view that once more the show’s credibility and the viewer’s patience get strained. At its best, the series is reminiscent of the TV version some years back of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the opposing allures and fears presented by science and religion. In its low points, it’s more like a bear-themed police procedural. Nevertheless, it appears to offer the answer to the earlier query: “Females, choose the animal.”
To Cook a Bear is on Disney+ currently.
