An intense discussion lately went viral on social media, after a user posed a query for females: which would you prefer find yourself stranded in the woods alongside a male or with a bear? Similar to the most engaging hypothetical scenarios, it exposed wildly different perspectives and life encounters, highlighted divides among genders, and was likely cause an existential crisis for anyone pondering on it extensively. There was also the almost inevitable follow-up in which men of a certain stripe took to the internet to inform females how foolish they were to select the bear and went on to limn the consequences they merited for that choice. This at minimum allowed those females who were uncertain about their decision to decide with renewed assurance.
Dramatising the Scenario
The Bear-Cooking Tale skillfully brings to life this nifty small premise. The six-part drama is based on Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s 2018 novel with the identical title (rendered in 2020 for English readers). It follows the struggles of a clergyman (the lead actor) and his family as they come to start a new ministry in Kengis, an isolated village in northern Sweden, in 1852. In a place lacking many joys, none of the locals particularly appreciate his puritanical approach to alcohol and revelry, but it is his protection of impoverished people – particularly the indigenous Sami, from among whom hails the preacher’s adopted son Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his conviction in social justice and equality that sets him on a collision course against the Kengis local authorities.
The Antagonists
Quickly in cahoots opposing him include the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the fearsome mill owner Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed early on firing a recently mangled worker with minimal compensation while he is still babbling at the sight his crushed hand, and all others who profit from a community who can be bought for a few bottles of liquor sold by the creepy shopkeeper the merchant Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness pales when itinerant painter Beronius arrives on the scene (Simon J Berger, providing a performance of exceptional discomfiting power). If they are – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, they are at least effective ones.
Plot Progression
With the seeds of tension planted, the moment arrives to proceed with the storyline. The servant employed by the doctor, the character Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), accordingly goes missing from the woods. Signs of her flight and bear markings upon a trunk are found but she is nowhere to be seen. Gossip and fears regarding a human-devouring bear roaming the woods spread, but the pastor has another theory that he and Jussi embark to verify.
A Strange Creation
To Cook a Bear is a slightly odd beast. It creates a strong impression of the bleakness that lets suspicion and prejudice and grim legends flourish from the native legend that animals might be dominated or possessed by the souls of humans. It avoids romanticise the hardscrabble life led by the villagers, in which violence, be it from the wild or mankind, lurks constantly on the edges, poised to explode. Yet the personas seldom evolve more than ciphers – or perhaps, while the conflicts between justice and vengeance, logic and faith, virtue and wickedness escalate, emblematic figures within a moral tale – which stops the whole thing fully becoming immersive.
Tonal Inconsistencies
And then, there are the many tonally jarring instances in which the pastor’s ability to discover clues and discern Hilda’s fate turns almost risible. He stands observing broken milk pots and strands of fur in hay barns as a fusion of Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – alongside Jussi a rather hapless Hastings-cum-Watson (none of whom had to lick a mixture of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to confirm that indeed, it was clearly coagulated blood on the site), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and extracting a corpse out of a swamp.
Opposing Goals
The village elite are determined demonstrating that the maid was killed by a bear, maybe to preserve the calm, or possibly to shield one of their own. The clergyman is bent on establishing the opposite, and the proof so rapidly stacks up in his favour that again the show’s credibility and audience tolerance are tested. In its finest moments, the series evokes memories of the adaptation a few years ago of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the competing attractions and terrors offered by rational thought and belief. In its low points, it’s more like a bear-themed police procedural. Nevertheless, it appears to offer the answer to that debated question: “Ladies, take the bear.”
To Cook a Bear is on Disney+ currently.
