🔗 Share this article

A heated discussion recently spread widely across online platforms, after someone asked a query for females: which would you prefer be lost in a forest with a man or with a bear? Similar to the best thought experiments, it revealed wildly different perspectives and experiences, highlighted chasms between the sexes, and could easily to induce a deep personal dilemma for anyone pondering about it extensively. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable follow-up where men of a certain stripe took to the internet to inform females how stupid they were for choosing the animal and proceeded to describe the punishments they merited for that choice. This at minimum enabled the women who were uncertain over their choice to decide with renewed assurance.

Dramatising the Setup

The Bear-Cooking Tale skillfully brings to life this clever small premise. The six-part drama is adapted on Scandinavian writer Mikael Niemi’s 2018 novel of the same name (translated in 2020 for an English audience). It follows the struggles of a pastor (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his family as they come to begin a fresh religious post within Kengis, a remote settlement in Sweden’s north, during the mid-19th century. In a place with few pleasures, not one of the inhabitants particularly appreciate his strict approach to alcohol and revelry, but it is his protection of the poor – especially the native Sami population, from among whom hails the pastor’s foster child 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 Opposing Forces

Soon in cahoots against him include the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the intimidating mill owner the matron Sjödahl (the actress), seen early on firing a newly injured worker with minimal compensation as he remains gibbering at the sight of his pulped hand, and anyone else who profit from a populace easily swayed with some containers of liquor sold by the unsettling shopkeeper the merchant Lindmark (the actor). However, to be fair, Lindmark’s creepiness pales once itinerant painter Beronius arrives in the story (the performer, providing an acting turn of exceptional discomfiting power). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – only a little more than caricatures, they are at least effective ones.

Narrative Development

With the seeds of tension sown, it is time to proceed to narrative business. The maid employed by the doctor, Hilda (the actress), duly goes missing in the forest. Indications of her escape and bear markings upon a trunk are found yet she remains nowhere to be seen. Rumours and anxieties regarding a human-devouring bear prowling the woodland circulate, but the pastor holds a different view that he and Jussi embark to verify.

An Odd Beast

To Cook a Bear is a somewhat odd beast. It conjures a strong impression of the bleakness that lets suspicion and prejudice and grim legends flourish based on local folklore that animals can be controlled or possessed by the souls of men. It avoids romanticise the tough existence experienced by the residents, in which violence, whether that of the wild or people, lurks constantly on the edges, waiting to erupt. But the characters seldom evolve beyond symbols – or maybe, as the struggles between justice and vengeance, logic and religion, good and wickedness intensify, representative characters in a fable – preventing the whole thing truly coming to life.

Tonal Inconsistencies

Additionally, exist the many tonally jarring instances where the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and determine the maid’s destiny turns nearly laughable. He positions himself looking at shattered containers and clumps of hair in hay barns like a combined the Belgian detective and Sherlock Holmes – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (neither of whom were required to lick a blend of blood droplets and the boss’s spit to agree that, yes, it was definitely dried blood on the site), before announcing his latest deduction and pulling a body from a bog.

Clashing Agendas

The village elite are bent on proving that Hilda met her end by a bear, perhaps to preserve the peace, perhaps to protect one of their own. The clergyman is intent on establishing otherwise, and the proof so quickly accumulates supporting his view that once more the drama’s plausibility and the viewer’s patience are tested. At its best, To Cook a Bear is reminiscent of the TV version a few years ago of the author’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the opposing attractions and fears offered by science and religion. At its worst, it’s more like a bear-themed police procedural. Still, it appears to offer the answer to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”

• To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ now.