A heated discussion recently spread widely on social media, following someone posed the question for females: would you rather find yourself stranded in a forest alongside a male or a bear? Similar to the most engaging thought experiments, it exposed vastly opposing worldviews and experiences, highlighted chasms between the sexes, and was likely to induce an existential crisis if you thought on it extensively. Additionally, there came the predictable coda where men of a certain stripe came online to tell women how foolish they were to select the bear and proceeded to limn the consequences they deserved for that choice. This at least allowed the women who were uncertain over their choice to make it with renewed assurance.
Dramatising the Setup
The Bear-Cooking Tale effectively brings to life this clever little setup. The six-part 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 struggles of a clergyman (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his family when they arrive to start a fresh religious post within Kengis, a remote settlement in northern Sweden, in 1852. In a place lacking many joys, none of the locals especially warm to his puritanical approach to alcohol and dancing, yet it is his defense of the poor – particularly the indigenous Sami, from among whom hails the preacher’s foster child the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his conviction in social justice and equal rights that places him on a collision course with the Kengis powers that be.
The Antagonists
Soon collaborating against him are the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the fearsome factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (the actress), seen initially firing a recently mangled laborer with a month’s pay as he remains gibbering at the sight his crushed hand, and anyone else who benefit from a community easily swayed with some containers of the whisky provided by the unsettling store owner the merchant Lindmark (the actor). Although, to be fair, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes once travelling artist Beronius arrives on the scene (Simon J Berger, delivering a performance of rare discomfiting power). While they remain – like the pastor himself – only a little more than caricatures, they are at least effective ones.
Plot Progression
With the seeds of conflict planted, it is time to proceed to narrative business. The servant employed by the doctor, the character Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), duly goes missing in the forest. Signs of her escape and animal scratches upon a trunk are found but she is nowhere to be seen. Gossip and anxieties of a man/maid-eating beast roaming the woodland spread, but the pastor holds a different view which he and his ward set out to verify.
A Strange Creation
To Cook a Bear is a slightly peculiar show. It conjures a strong impression of the desolation that lets suspicion and bias and dark myths flourish based on local folklore that bears can be controlled or inhabited by the spirits of men. It avoids idealising the tough existence experienced by the residents, in which brutality, be it from the wild or people, lurks constantly at the periphery, poised to explode. Yet the personas rarely become beyond symbols – or maybe, as the struggles between justice and revenge, logic and faith, good and evil escalate, emblematic figures in a fable – which stops the whole thing truly becoming immersive.
Tonal Inconsistencies
And then, exist numerous tonally jarring instances where the pastor’s ability to discover clues and discern the maid’s destiny turns nearly laughable. He stands looking at shattered containers and clumps of hair within storage sheds like a combined the Belgian detective the English sleuth – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (none of whom were required to taste a blend of blood droplets and the boss’s spit to confirm that indeed, it was definitely dried blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his latest deduction and extracting a corpse from a bog.
Opposing Goals
The local leaders are determined demonstrating that Hilda met her end by a bear, maybe to preserve the calm, perhaps to shield one of their own. The clergyman is bent on establishing otherwise, and the proof so quickly stacks up in his favour that again the drama’s plausibility and the viewer’s patience are tested. In its finest moments, the series is reminiscent of the adaptation a few years ago of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the opposing allures and fears offered by science and religion. At its worst, it’s more like Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Nevertheless, it does seem to provide the response to that debated question: “Ladies, take the bear.”
To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ now.
