A intense discussion recently went viral on social media, following someone posed a query for females: which would you prefer find yourself stranded in a forest alongside a male or with a bear? Similar to the best hypothetical scenarios, it revealed wildly different perspectives and experiences, illuminated divides among genders, and was likely cause an existential crisis for anyone pondering about it extensively. There was also the predictable follow-up in which some males took to the internet to tell women how foolish they had been for choosing the bear and proceeded to limn the consequences they deserved for it. This at least enabled the women who were uncertain over their choice to make it with a new confidence.
Dramatising the Scenario
The Bear-Cooking Tale effectively dramatises this clever little setup. The six-part drama is based on Scandinavian writer Mikael Niemi’s 2018 book with the identical title (rendered 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 settlement in Sweden’s north, in 1852. In a place with few pleasures, not one of the locals especially warm to his puritanical approach to drinking and dancing, yet it is his protection of impoverished people – particularly the native Sami population, from which hails the pastor’s adopted son Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his belief in societal fairness and equal rights that places him in direct opposition with the Kengis local authorities.
The Antagonists
Soon in cahoots against him are the sheriff the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating mill owner the matron Sjödahl (the actress), observed initially dismissing a newly injured worker with a month’s pay while he is still gibbering at the sight of his pulped hand, and all others who profit from a community easily swayed for a few bottles of the whisky sold by the creepy store owner Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes when itinerant painter Beronius arrives on the scene (Simon J Berger, delivering a performance of rare discomfiting power). If they are – like the pastor himself – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, they still serve as potent archetypes.
Plot Progression
With the seeds of conflict planted, it is time to get down to narrative business. The maid from the doctor’s house, the character Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), accordingly vanishes from the woods. Indications of her escape and bear markings on a tree are found but she is nowhere to be seen. Rumours and anxieties of a man/maid-eating beast roaming the woodland circulate, yet the clergyman has another theory which he and his ward embark to verify.
A Strange Creation
This Bear Drama is a somewhat peculiar show. It creates a fine sense of the desolation that lets suspicion and prejudice and grim legends thrive based on local folklore that bears can be controlled or possessed by the souls of men. It avoids idealising the tough existence led by the villagers, where brutality, whether that of the wild or mankind, always looms at the periphery, poised to explode. But the characters seldom evolve more than ciphers – or perhaps, while the conflicts amid fairness and vengeance, rationality and religion, good and evil escalate, emblematic figures within a moral tale – preventing the whole thing truly coming to life.
Tonal Inconsistencies
And then, exist the many tonally jarring instances where the clergyman’s skill to discover clues and discern the maid’s destiny turns nearly laughable. He positions himself observing broken milk pots and strands of fur within storage sheds like a combined Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – with Jussi a rather hapless Hastings-cum-Watson (none of whom had to taste a blend of blood droplets and the boss’s spit to confirm that indeed, it was definitely dried blood on the site), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and pulling a body from a bog.
Clashing Agendas
The village elite are bent on proving that Hilda was killed by a bear, maybe to protect the calm, or possibly to shield a fellow elite. The clergyman is intent on establishing otherwise, and the proof 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 serpent tale, through its portrayal of the opposing allures and terrors presented by science and belief. At its worst, it’s more like Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Nevertheless, it does seem to offer the response to that debated question: “Females, choose the animal.”
The series is on Disney+ currently.
