A heated debate lately went viral on social media, after a user posed the question for females: would you rather find yourself stranded in a forest with a man or with a bear? Like all the most engaging thought experiments, it revealed wildly different perspectives and experiences, illuminated chasms between the sexes, and was likely to induce a deep personal dilemma for anyone pondering on it extensively. There was also the predictable coda where men of a certain stripe took to the internet to inform women how stupid they were to select the animal and proceeded to limn the consequences they merited for that choice. This at least allowed those females who were uncertain over their choice to decide with a new confidence.
Dramatising the Scenario
The Bear-Cooking Tale skillfully dramatises this clever small premise. This six-episode drama is adapted on Scandinavian writer the novelist’s 2018 book of the same name (translated in 2020 for English readers). It traces the struggles of a clergyman (the lead actor) and his family when they arrive to begin a new ministry within Kengis, a remote settlement in Sweden’s north, in 1852. Within a community with few pleasures, not one of the inhabitants especially warm to his strict stance on alcohol and revelry, yet it is his protection of the poor – especially the indigenous Sami, from among whom comes the preacher’s foster child Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his conviction in societal fairness and equality that sets him on a collision course with the Kengis local authorities.
The Antagonists
Soon collaborating opposing him are the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating mill owner Madam Sjödahl (the actress), observed early on firing a recently mangled laborer with a month’s pay while he is still babbling upon seeing his crushed hand, and all others who profit from a community who can be bought for a few bottles of liquor provided by the unsettling shopkeeper the merchant Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes when travelling artist Beronius appears in the story (Simon J Berger, providing a performance of rare discomfiting power). If they are – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, they still serve as potent archetypes.
Plot Progression
With the seeds of conflict planted, it is time to proceed with the storyline. The maid employed by the doctor, the character Hilda (the actress), duly goes missing in the forest. Signs of her escape and animal scratches on a tree are found but she is completely absent. Rumours and fears regarding a human-devouring beast roaming the woodland circulate, yet the clergyman holds a different view that he and Jussi set out to verify.
An Odd Beast
To Cook a Bear is a slightly peculiar show. It conjures a fine sense of the bleakness that lets suspicion and prejudice and grim legends thrive from the native legend that bears can be controlled or possessed by the spirits of men. It avoids idealising the tough existence experienced by the residents, in which violence, be it from nature or people, always looms on the edges, waiting to erupt. But the characters rarely become more than ciphers – or maybe, while the conflicts between justice and revenge, rationality and faith, good and wickedness escalate, representative characters in a fable – preventing the whole thing truly coming to life.
Stylistic Shifts
Additionally, there are the many tonally jarring instances in which the pastor’s ability to discover clues and discern Hilda’s fate becomes almost risible. He stands looking at shattered containers and strands of fur within storage sheds like a combined Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – alongside Jussi a rather hapless assistant figure (neither of whom had to taste a mixture of blood spatter and the boss’s spit to confirm that indeed, it was clearly coagulated blood on the site), before announcing his newest conclusion and extracting a corpse from a bog.
Opposing Goals
The local leaders are bent on proving that Hilda was killed by a bear, maybe to protect the peace, perhaps to shield a fellow elite. The clergyman is intent on proving otherwise, and the evidence so rapidly stacks up supporting his view that once more the drama’s plausibility and the viewer’s patience 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 allures and terrors presented by science and religion. In its low points, it resembles a bear-themed police procedural. Nevertheless, it does seem to offer the answer to that debated question: “Ladies, take the bear.”
To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ currently.
