A intense discussion recently went viral on social media, after someone asked a query to women: which would you prefer find yourself stranded in the woods with a man or with a bear? Like all the best thought experiments, it revealed vastly opposing perspectives and experiences, highlighted divides among genders, and could easily to induce an existential crisis for anyone pondering about it extensively. There was also the almost inevitable coda where men of a certain stripe took to the internet to inform females how foolish they were for choosing the animal and proceeded to limn the punishments they deserved for it. This at minimum allowed the women who were uncertain about their decision to make it with renewed assurance.
Dramatising the Setup
The Bear-Cooking Tale effectively brings to life this clever little setup. This six-episode series is based from Scandinavian writer the novelist’s 2018 book of the same name (rendered in 2020 for English readers). It traces the struggles of a pastor (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his family as they come to begin a fresh religious post within Kengis, a remote village in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. In a place lacking many joys, none of the locals particularly warm to his puritanical approach to drinking and dancing, but it is his protection of the poor – particularly the indigenous Sami, from among whom comes the pastor’s adopted son the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his conviction in social justice and equality that places him in direct opposition with the Kengis local authorities.
The Antagonists
Soon collaborating opposing him are the sheriff the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen early on dismissing a recently mangled worker with a month’s pay as he remains gibbering at the sight his crushed hand, and all others who benefit from a populace easily swayed with some containers of liquor sold by the unsettling shopkeeper Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness pales when itinerant painter the artist Beronius appears in the story (the performer, providing an acting turn of exceptional unsettling intensity). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond than caricatures, they are at least potent archetypes.
Plot Progression
Once the foundations of conflict sown, the moment arrives to get down to narrative business. The servant employed by the doctor, Hilda (the actress), accordingly vanishes from the woods. Signs of her escape and bear markings on a tree are found but she is nowhere to be seen. Rumours and fears regarding a human-devouring beast prowling the woods circulate, but the pastor has another theory that he and Jussi embark to verify.
A Strange Creation
To Cook a Bear is a slightly odd beast. It creates a fine sense of the desolation that allows suspicion and bias and dark myths flourish based on local folklore that bears can be controlled or possessed by the souls of humans. And it doesn’t romanticise the tough existence experienced by the villagers, where violence, be it from the wild or people, always looms at the periphery, poised to explode. But the characters seldom evolve beyond symbols – or maybe, as the struggles between justice and vengeance, rationality and faith, virtue and wickedness intensify, representative characters within a moral tale – which stops the whole thing fully coming to life.
Stylistic Shifts
Additionally, exist numerous tonally jarring moments in which the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and determine the maid’s destiny becomes almost risible. He stands observing shattered containers and strands of fur in hay barns as a fusion of Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – alongside Jussi a rather hapless assistant figure (neither of whom had to taste a blend of blood spatter and the boss’s spit to confirm that, yes, it was clearly dried blood on the site), before announcing his newest conclusion and extracting a body out of a swamp.
Opposing Goals
The local leaders are bent on proving that the maid was killed by an animal, perhaps to protect the peace, perhaps to shield a fellow elite. The pastor is bent on establishing the opposite, and the evidence so rapidly stacks up in his favour that once more the drama’s plausibility and the viewer’s patience are tested. In its finest moments, To Cook a Bear is reminiscent of the adaptation some years back of the author’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the opposing attractions and terrors presented by rational thought and religion. In its low points, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it appears to offer the response to that debated question: “Females, choose the animal.”
To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ now.
