A intense debate lately spread widely across online platforms, following a user asked the question to women: would you rather be lost in a forest alongside a male or a bear? Similar to the best thought experiments, it revealed vastly opposing worldviews and life encounters, illuminated divides between the sexes, and was likely cause an existential crisis for anyone pondering about it for too long. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable coda where some males came online to inform females how stupid they had been to select the animal and went on to describe the consequences they deserved for it. This at least enabled those females who were uncertain about their decision to make it with renewed assurance.
Dramatising the Setup
The Bear-Cooking Tale skillfully dramatises this clever little setup. This six-episode series is based on Swedish author 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 family when they arrive to begin a fresh religious post in Kengis, a remote settlement in Sweden’s north, during the mid-19th century. In a place lacking many joys, not one of the inhabitants particularly warm to his strict approach to alcohol and dancing, yet it is his defense of impoverished people – particularly the native Sami population, from among whom comes the preacher’s adopted son the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his belief in societal fairness and equality that sets him on a collision course against the Kengis local authorities.
The Opposing Forces
Soon collaborating opposing him are the lawman Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating mill owner Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed initially dismissing a newly injured laborer with minimal compensation while he is still gibbering at the sight his crushed hand, and anyone else who profit from a community easily swayed for a few bottles of liquor sold by the creepy store owner Lindmark (the actor). Although, to be fair, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes when travelling artist Beronius appears in the story (the performer, delivering an acting turn of rare discomfiting power). While they remain – like the pastor himself – just slightly beyond than caricatures, they still serve as effective ones.
Narrative Development
Once the foundations of tension sown, it is time to proceed with the storyline. The servant employed by the doctor, Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), duly goes missing from the woods. Indications of her escape and animal scratches on a tree get discovered but she is completely absent. Rumours and fears of a man/maid-eating beast roaming the woodland circulate, but the pastor has another theory that he and Jussi embark to prove.
An Odd Beast
This Bear Drama is a somewhat odd beast. It conjures a fine sense of the bleakness that allows suspicion and prejudice and dark myths thrive from the native legend that bears can be controlled or inhabited by the spirits of men. It avoids romanticise the hardscrabble life experienced by the residents, where brutality, whether that of the wild or mankind, always looms on the edges, poised to explode. Yet the personas seldom evolve beyond symbols – or maybe, as the struggles between justice and vengeance, rationality and faith, good and wickedness escalate, representative characters in a fable – which stops the whole thing truly becoming immersive.
Stylistic Shifts
Additionally, exist the many tonally jarring moments where the pastor’s ability to discover clues and determine the maid’s destiny becomes almost risible. He positions himself observing broken milk pots and strands of fur in hay barns like a combined Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (neither of whom were required to lick a blend of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to confirm that indeed, it was clearly coagulated blood on the site), before announcing his latest deduction and extracting a body from a bog.
Clashing Agendas
The village elite are bent on demonstrating that Hilda met her end by an animal, perhaps to preserve the peace, perhaps to shield one of their own. The clergyman is intent on proving otherwise, and the evidence so quickly accumulates in his favour that again the show’s credibility and audience tolerance get strained. At its best, To Cook a Bear is reminiscent of the adaptation a few years ago of Sarah Perry’s The Essex Serpent, with its evocation of the opposing attractions and fears offered by rational thought and belief. In its low points, it’s more like a bear-themed police procedural. Still, it appears to offer the response to the earlier query: “Females, choose the animal.”
To Cook a Bear is on Disney+ now.
