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An intense discussion recently spread widely on social media, following a user posed the question for females: would you rather find yourself stranded in a forest alongside a male or with a bear? Like all the most engaging thought experiments, it exposed vastly opposing worldviews and life encounters, illuminated chasms among genders, and was likely cause an existential crisis for anyone pondering about it for too long. There was also the predictable follow-up where men of a certain stripe came online to inform women how foolish they were to select the animal and went on to limn the punishments they deserved for that choice. This at least enabled the women who had been hesitating about their decision to make it with a new confidence.

Dramatising the Setup

The Bear-Cooking Tale skillfully brings to life this clever small premise. The six-part series is based on Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s 2018 book with the identical title (translated in 2020 for English readers). It follows the struggles of a pastor (the lead actor) and his household when they arrive to begin a new ministry within Kengis, a remote village in northern Sweden, in 1852. In a place with few pleasures, none of the locals particularly warm to his strict stance on alcohol and dancing, but it is his protection of the poor – especially the native Sami population, from which hails the pastor’s adopted son the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his conviction in societal fairness and equal rights that sets him in direct opposition against the Kengis powers that be.

The Opposing Forces

Soon collaborating opposing him are the lawman Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the fearsome mill owner the matron Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen initially dismissing a recently mangled worker with a month’s pay as he remains gibbering at the sight of his pulped hand, and all others who benefit from a community easily swayed with some containers of liquor sold by the creepy shopkeeper Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). However, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes when itinerant painter Beronius arrives in the story (Simon J Berger, delivering a performance of rare discomfiting power). If they are – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond than caricatures, they still serve as effective ones.

Plot Progression

Once the foundations of conflict sown, it is time to get down with the storyline. The servant from the doctor’s house, Hilda (the actress), duly vanishes from the woods. Indications of her flight and animal scratches on a tree are found but she is nowhere to be seen. Rumours and anxieties regarding a human-devouring bear prowling the woodland spread, 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 desolation that allows suspicion and prejudice and grim legends thrive from the native legend that bears might be dominated or inhabited by the souls of men. And it doesn’t romanticise the tough existence experienced by the villagers, where brutality, be it from the wild or mankind, lurks constantly at the periphery, poised to explode. Yet the personas rarely become beyond symbols – or perhaps, while the conflicts between justice and vengeance, rationality and faith, good and wickedness escalate, representative characters in a fable – preventing the whole thing fully becoming immersive.

Stylistic Shifts

Additionally, exist numerous stylistically clashing moments where the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and determine the maid’s destiny becomes almost risible. He positions himself looking at shattered containers and clumps of hair in hay barns as a fusion of Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – with Jussi a rather hapless Hastings-cum-Watson (none of whom were required to lick a blend of blood spatter and the boss’s spit to confirm that, yes, it was definitely dried blood at the crime scene), before announcing his latest deduction and pulling a corpse from a bog.

Opposing Goals

The local leaders are bent on proving that the maid was killed by a bear, maybe to protect the peace, perhaps to protect a fellow elite. The clergyman is intent on proving otherwise, and the evidence so rapidly accumulates in his favour that again the drama’s plausibility and audience tolerance get strained. 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 competing attractions and fears presented by rational thought and religion. At its worst, it resembles a bear-themed police procedural. Nevertheless, it does seem to provide the answer to the earlier query: “Females, choose the animal.”

• To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ now.