A heated debate recently went viral on social media, after someone posed a query to women: would you rather find yourself stranded in a forest alongside a male or a bear? Like all the best hypothetical scenarios, it exposed wildly different worldviews and life encounters, highlighted divides among genders, and could easily to induce a deep personal dilemma for anyone pondering about it extensively. There was also the almost inevitable coda in which some males came online to tell females how stupid they had been for choosing the animal and proceeded to limn the punishments they merited for that choice. This at least allowed those females who were uncertain over their choice to decide with a new confidence.
Portraying the Scenario
The Bear-Cooking Tale skillfully brings to life this nifty small premise. This six-episode drama is adapted from Scandinavian writer Mikael Niemi’s 2018 novel of the same name (rendered two years later for an English audience). It traces the tribulations of a pastor (the lead actor) and his household when they arrive to start a fresh religious post within Kengis, a remote settlement in Sweden’s north, in 1852. Within a community lacking many joys, none of the locals especially appreciate his strict approach to alcohol and revelry, yet it is his defense of impoverished people – particularly the native Sami population, from among whom comes the pastor’s foster child Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in social justice and equal rights that sets him in direct opposition against the Kengis local authorities.
The Antagonists
Quickly collaborating against him are the sheriff the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed early on dismissing a recently mangled worker with minimal compensation while he is still gibbering upon seeing of his pulped hand, and all others who profit from a populace who can be bought for a few bottles of the whisky sold by the creepy shopkeeper Lindmark (the actor). Although, to be fair, Lindmark’s creepiness pales once travelling artist the artist Beronius arrives on the scene (Simon J Berger, delivering an acting turn of exceptional discomfiting power). If they are – like the pastor himself – only a little more 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 servant from the doctor’s house, the character Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), duly goes missing in the forest. Signs of her escape and bear markings upon a trunk are found yet she remains nowhere to be seen. Gossip and anxieties regarding a human-devouring bear roaming the woodland circulate, but the pastor has another theory that he and Jussi embark to prove.
A Strange Creation
This Bear Drama is a slightly peculiar show. It creates a strong impression of the desolation that allows distrust and prejudice and grim legends thrive based on local folklore that bears might be dominated or inhabited by the spirits of men. And it doesn’t idealising the hardscrabble life led by the villagers, in which violence, whether that of the wild or mankind, lurks constantly on the edges, waiting to erupt. Yet the personas seldom evolve more than ciphers – or perhaps, while the conflicts between justice and vengeance, logic and religion, virtue and wickedness escalate, emblematic figures within a moral tale – preventing the entire production fully becoming immersive.
Tonal Inconsistencies
And then, there are the many tonally jarring moments in which the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and determine the maid’s destiny turns almost risible. He positions himself observing broken milk pots and strands of fur within storage sheds like a combined Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (neither of whom had to taste a mixture of blood droplets and the boss’s spit to confirm that, yes, it was clearly dried blood on the site), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and extracting a corpse out of a swamp.
Clashing Agendas
The local leaders are determined demonstrating that Hilda was killed by a bear, perhaps to preserve the calm, perhaps to shield a fellow elite. The clergyman is intent on establishing the opposite, and the proof so rapidly stacks up in his favour that again the drama’s plausibility and the viewer’s patience are tested. At its best, the series evokes memories of the adaptation a few years ago of the author’s The Essex Serpent, through its portrayal of the opposing allures and terrors offered by rational thought and religion. In its low points, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it appears to provide the response to that debated question: “Females, choose the animal.”
To Cook a Bear is on Disney+ currently.
