An heated debate recently spread widely on social media, after a user posed the question to women: which would you prefer find yourself stranded in the woods with a man or with a bear? Similar to the most engaging hypothetical scenarios, it revealed vastly opposing perspectives and life encounters, highlighted chasms between the sexes, and was likely cause a deep personal dilemma for anyone pondering on it extensively. Additionally, there came the predictable follow-up where some males came online to inform women how foolish they had been to select the bear and proceeded to describe the consequences they merited for that choice. This at least allowed those females who had been hesitating over their choice to make it with renewed assurance.
Portraying the Setup
The Bear-Cooking Tale skillfully dramatises this clever small premise. This six-episode drama is based from Scandinavian writer Mikael Niemi’s 2018 novel with the identical title (translated in 2020 for an English audience). It traces the tribulations of a clergyman (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his household when they arrive to start 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 locals especially warm to his puritanical approach to alcohol and dancing, yet it is his defense of the poor – particularly the native Sami population, from among whom comes the pastor’s adopted son the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in societal fairness and equal rights that sets him in direct opposition against the Kengis powers that be.
The Antagonists
Soon in cahoots against him include the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the fearsome factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed early on dismissing a recently mangled worker with minimal compensation while he is still gibbering upon seeing his crushed hand, and all others who benefit from a community who can be bought for a few bottles of liquor provided by the unsettling shopkeeper the merchant Lindmark (the actor). However, to be fair, Lindmark’s eeriness pales once travelling artist Beronius appears in the story (Simon J Berger, providing a performance of rare discomfiting power). If they are – like the pastor himself – just slightly beyond than caricatures, they are at least effective ones.
Narrative Development
With the seeds of tension planted, it is time to proceed with the storyline. The maid from the doctor’s house, Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), duly goes missing in the forest. Indications of her flight and animal scratches upon a trunk get discovered but she is completely absent. Gossip and fears of a man/maid-eating bear roaming the woods spread, yet the clergyman has another theory that he and Jussi set out to prove.
An Odd Beast
To Cook a Bear is a somewhat odd beast. It conjures a fine sense of the bleakness that allows distrust and prejudice and dark myths flourish based on local folklore that bears can be controlled or inhabited by the spirits of men. And it doesn’t romanticise the tough existence led by the residents, where brutality, be it from nature or mankind, always looms on the edges, waiting to erupt. But the characters rarely become beyond symbols – or perhaps, while the conflicts amid fairness and vengeance, logic and faith, good and wickedness escalate, emblematic figures in a fable – which stops the whole thing fully becoming immersive.
Tonal Inconsistencies
And then, exist numerous stylistically clashing moments where the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and determine the maid’s destiny becomes nearly laughable. He stands observing broken milk pots and strands of fur in hay barns as a fusion of Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (neither of whom had to lick a blend of blood droplets and the boss’s spit to agree that indeed, it was clearly coagulated blood on the site), before announcing his newest conclusion and pulling a body from a bog.
Opposing Goals
The local leaders are bent on demonstrating that the maid met her end by a bear, maybe to protect the calm, or possibly to protect a fellow elite. The clergyman is bent on proving otherwise, and the proof so quickly accumulates in his favour that once more the drama’s plausibility and audience tolerance are tested. At its best, the series is reminiscent of the adaptation a few years ago of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the opposing attractions and fears presented by rational thought and religion. In its low points, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Nevertheless, it appears to provide the answer to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”
To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ now.
