A heated discussion lately spread widely on social media, following someone posed a query for females: would you rather find yourself stranded in the woods alongside a male or with a bear? Similar to the most engaging thought experiments, it exposed wildly different worldviews and life encounters, highlighted chasms among genders, and could easily to induce a deep personal dilemma if you thought on it extensively. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable coda in which men of a certain stripe took to the internet to inform women how stupid they were for choosing the animal and went on to describe the punishments they deserved for that choice. This at minimum allowed those females who had been hesitating about their decision to make it with renewed assurance.
Dramatising the Setup
The Bear-Cooking Tale skillfully dramatises this nifty small premise. This six-episode drama is based on Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s 2018 novel of the same name (rendered two years later for English readers). It traces the struggles of a clergyman (the lead actor) and his family when they arrive to begin a fresh religious post in Kengis, a remote settlement in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. Within a community lacking many joys, not one of the locals particularly appreciate his strict stance on alcohol and revelry, but it is his defense of the poor – especially the native Sami population, from which hails the pastor’s foster child the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his conviction in societal fairness and equal rights that sets him on a collision course with the Kengis local authorities.
The Antagonists
Quickly in cahoots against him are the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the fearsome factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (the actress), seen initially firing a recently mangled worker with a month’s pay as he remains babbling upon seeing his crushed hand, and anyone else who profit from a community easily swayed for a few bottles of the whisky sold by the creepy store owner Lindmark (the actor). However, to be fair, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes once travelling artist the artist Beronius arrives on the scene (the performer, providing a performance of exceptional discomfiting power). If they are – like the pastor himself – only a little more being stereotypes, they are at least potent archetypes.
Narrative Development
With the seeds of conflict planted, it is time to get down with the storyline. The maid from the doctor’s house, Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), accordingly vanishes in the forest. Signs of her escape and bear markings upon a trunk are found yet she remains nowhere to be seen. Gossip and fears regarding a human-devouring beast prowling the woodland circulate, yet the clergyman holds a different view that he and Jussi embark to prove.
An Odd Beast
This Bear Drama is a slightly peculiar show. It conjures a strong impression of the bleakness that lets suspicion and bias and dark myths flourish based on local folklore that bears can be controlled or possessed by the souls of humans. And it doesn’t romanticise the hardscrabble life led by the villagers, where violence, whether that of the wild or mankind, always looms at the periphery, poised to explode. Yet the personas rarely become more than ciphers – or perhaps, while the conflicts between justice and vengeance, rationality and religion, virtue and evil escalate, emblematic figures within a moral tale – which stops the entire production truly becoming immersive.
Tonal Inconsistencies
Additionally, there are the many stylistically clashing instances in which the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and determine the maid’s destiny becomes almost risible. He positions himself observing shattered containers and strands of fur within storage sheds as a fusion of Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – with Jussi a rather hapless Hastings-cum-Watson (none of whom had to lick a mixture of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to agree that indeed, it was definitely dried blood at the crime scene), before announcing his latest deduction and pulling a corpse out of a swamp.
Opposing Goals
The village elite are bent on proving that Hilda met her end by an animal, perhaps to preserve the peace, or possibly to shield a fellow elite. The pastor is intent on establishing otherwise, and the proof so quickly accumulates in his favour that once more the drama’s plausibility and the viewer’s patience are tested. At its best, To Cook a Bear evokes memories of the TV version a few years ago of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the opposing attractions and terrors presented by science and religion. In its low points, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it appears to provide the answer to that debated question: “Females, choose the animal.”
The series is on Disney+ now.
