An heated discussion recently went viral on social media, after a user asked the question for females: which would you prefer find yourself stranded in a forest alongside a male or with a bear? Similar to the most engaging thought experiments, it revealed wildly different perspectives and life encounters, illuminated chasms between the sexes, and could easily to induce a deep personal dilemma for anyone pondering on it for too long. There was also the almost inevitable follow-up where men of a certain stripe came online to tell females how foolish they had been to select the animal and proceeded to describe the consequences they deserved for it. This at least allowed those females who were uncertain over their choice to decide with renewed assurance.
Portraying the Setup
The Bear-Cooking Tale skillfully dramatises this nifty small premise. The six-part drama is based on Scandinavian writer Mikael Niemi’s 2018 book of the same name (rendered two years later for English readers). It follows the tribulations of a clergyman (the lead actor) and his household as they come to start a new ministry within Kengis, a remote village in Sweden’s north, in 1852. Within a community with few pleasures, not one of the locals particularly warm to his puritanical stance on drinking and revelry, but it is his defense of the poor – especially the indigenous Sami, from among whom comes the preacher’s adopted son the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in societal fairness and equal rights that sets him on a collision course against the Kengis local authorities.
The Antagonists
Quickly in cahoots opposing him include the lawman the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the fearsome mill owner Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen early on dismissing a newly injured worker with a month’s pay while he is still babbling at the sight his crushed hand, and anyone else who profit from a community easily swayed for a few bottles of the whisky provided by the unsettling store owner Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). However, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness pales once travelling artist the artist Beronius arrives in the story (the performer, providing a performance of exceptional unsettling intensity). If they are – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond than caricatures, they are at least potent archetypes.
Plot Progression
With the seeds of conflict planted, it is time to get down with the storyline. The servant employed by the doctor, the character Hilda (the actress), duly goes missing in the forest. Signs of her flight and bear markings upon a trunk are found but she is completely absent. Gossip and fears of a man/maid-eating beast roaming the woodland spread, yet the clergyman holds a different view that he and Jussi embark to prove.
A Strange Creation
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 animals can be controlled or possessed by the spirits of humans. It avoids romanticise the tough existence experienced by the villagers, in which violence, be it from the wild or mankind, always looms on the edges, waiting to erupt. But the characters seldom evolve more than ciphers – or perhaps, as the struggles between justice and revenge, rationality and faith, good and wickedness escalate, emblematic figures within a moral tale – preventing the whole thing fully becoming immersive.
Tonal Inconsistencies
Additionally, exist numerous tonally jarring moments in which the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and discern Hilda’s fate becomes nearly laughable. He stands observing broken milk pots and strands of fur in hay barns like a combined Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – alongside Jussi a rather hapless assistant figure (neither of whom were required to taste a mixture of blood droplets and saliva from his superior to agree that indeed, it was definitely coagulated blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and extracting a corpse out of a swamp.
Opposing Goals
The local leaders are bent on proving that the maid met her end by a bear, perhaps to protect the peace, perhaps to protect one of their own. The pastor is intent on establishing the opposite, and the evidence so quickly accumulates supporting his view that again the show’s credibility and audience tolerance are tested. At its best, the series is reminiscent of the adaptation a few years ago of the author’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the competing allures and terrors presented by science and belief. In its low points, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it appears to provide the response to that debated question: “Ladies, take the bear.”
To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ currently.
