A intense debate lately went viral on social media, after someone asked the question for females: which would you prefer be lost in a forest with a man or a bear? Similar to the most engaging thought experiments, it exposed vastly opposing perspectives and experiences, highlighted divides among genders, and was likely to induce a deep personal dilemma if you thought about it for too long. There was also the predictable follow-up in which men of a certain stripe took to the internet to tell females how stupid they were to select the bear and proceeded to limn the punishments they deserved for it. This at least enabled the women who were uncertain over their choice to decide with a new confidence.
Portraying the Scenario
The Bear-Cooking Tale effectively brings to life this nifty small premise. The six-part drama is based from Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s 2018 novel with the identical title (translated in 2020 for an English audience). It traces the struggles of a clergyman (the lead actor) and his household as they come to start a new ministry in Kengis, a remote village in Sweden’s north, during the mid-19th century. Within a community with few pleasures, none of the locals especially appreciate his puritanical stance on alcohol and dancing, yet it is his defense of impoverished people – especially the indigenous Sami, from among whom hails the preacher’s foster child Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his conviction in social justice and equality that sets him in direct opposition with the Kengis local authorities.
The Antagonists
Soon collaborating against him include the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the fearsome mill owner Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed early on dismissing a newly injured laborer with minimal compensation as he remains babbling upon seeing his crushed hand, and all others who benefit from a populace easily swayed with some containers of liquor sold by the creepy shopkeeper the merchant Lindmark (the actor). Although, to be fair, Lindmark’s eeriness pales when itinerant painter the artist Beronius arrives in the story (Simon J Berger, delivering a performance of exceptional discomfiting power). While they remain – like the pastor himself – only a little more than caricatures, they still serve as potent archetypes.
Plot Progression
With the seeds of conflict sown, the moment arrives to get down to narrative business. The servant from the doctor’s house, Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), accordingly goes missing in the forest. Indications of her flight and bear markings on a tree get discovered but she is completely absent. Rumours and anxieties of a man/maid-eating beast roaming the woodland circulate, but the pastor holds a different view which he and his ward set out to verify.
A Strange Creation
This Bear Drama is a somewhat odd beast. It conjures a fine sense of the desolation that lets suspicion and bias and dark myths flourish from the native legend that animals might be dominated or inhabited by the souls of humans. It avoids idealising the tough existence led by the villagers, where brutality, whether that of the wild or mankind, lurks constantly at the periphery, poised to explode. But the characters seldom evolve more than ciphers – or maybe, as the struggles between justice and vengeance, rationality and faith, virtue and evil intensify, emblematic figures within a moral tale – preventing the entire production fully becoming immersive.
Tonal Inconsistencies
Additionally, exist numerous tonally jarring moments in which the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and determine Hilda’s fate becomes almost risible. He stands observing shattered containers and clumps of hair within storage sheds as a fusion of the Belgian detective the English sleuth – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (neither of whom were required to lick a blend of blood droplets and the boss’s spit to confirm that indeed, it was clearly dried blood on the site), before announcing his newest conclusion and pulling a body from a bog.
Opposing Goals
The local leaders are determined proving that Hilda was killed by an animal, perhaps to preserve the calm, or possibly to shield a fellow elite. The pastor is intent on establishing otherwise, and the proof so quickly accumulates supporting his view that once more the show’s credibility and the viewer’s patience are tested. In its finest moments, To Cook a Bear is reminiscent of the TV version a few years ago of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the opposing attractions and fears offered by rational thought and belief. At its worst, it’s more like a bear-themed police procedural. Still, it does seem to provide the answer to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”
The series streams on Disney+ now.
