An intense discussion lately went viral across online platforms, following someone asked the question for females: which would you prefer be lost in a forest with a man or a bear? Like all the most engaging hypothetical scenarios, it revealed vastly opposing perspectives and experiences, illuminated divides between the sexes, and could easily cause an existential crisis for anyone pondering on it extensively. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable follow-up in which men of a certain stripe came online to inform women how foolish they were for choosing the animal and went on to limn the punishments they deserved for it. This at minimum allowed the women who had been hesitating about their decision to make it with renewed assurance.
Portraying the Scenario
The Bear-Cooking Tale skillfully dramatises this clever small premise. This six-episode series is adapted on Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s 2018 novel of the same name (translated in 2020 for English readers). It traces the tribulations of a clergyman (the lead actor) and his household when they arrive to start a fresh religious post in Kengis, a remote village in Sweden’s north, during the mid-19th century. In a place with few pleasures, none of the locals especially warm to his puritanical stance on drinking and revelry, yet it is his protection of the poor – particularly the indigenous Sami, from among whom comes the pastor’s foster child the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his belief in societal fairness and equal rights that places him in direct opposition with the Kengis local authorities.
The Antagonists
Soon collaborating against him are the lawman the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the intimidating mill owner Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen early on dismissing a newly injured worker with a month’s pay as he remains babbling upon seeing his crushed hand, and anyone else who profit from a populace who can be bought for a few bottles of the whisky provided by the unsettling shopkeeper Lindmark (the actor). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes when itinerant painter Beronius appears on the scene (Simon J Berger, providing an acting turn of exceptional unsettling intensity). If they are – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, they still serve as potent archetypes.
Narrative Development
Once the foundations of conflict planted, it is time to proceed with the storyline. The servant employed by the doctor, Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), duly vanishes from the woods. Signs of her escape and bear markings on a tree are found yet she remains nowhere to be seen. Gossip and fears of a man/maid-eating bear roaming the woodland spread, but the pastor has another theory that he and Jussi embark to prove.
A Strange Creation
To Cook a Bear is a somewhat odd beast. It conjures a strong impression of the bleakness that lets distrust 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 mankind, lurks constantly at the periphery, poised to explode. Yet the personas seldom evolve more than ciphers – or maybe, while the conflicts between justice and revenge, rationality and religion, virtue and evil intensify, emblematic figures in a fable – preventing the whole thing truly coming to life.
Stylistic Shifts
Additionally, there are the many tonally jarring moments in which the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and discern the maid’s destiny turns nearly laughable. He stands looking at shattered containers and strands of fur within storage sheds as a fusion of Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (none of whom had to lick a blend of blood spatter and the boss’s spit to agree that indeed, it was definitely coagulated blood at the crime scene), before announcing his newest conclusion and pulling a corpse from a bog.
Opposing Goals
The local leaders are bent on proving that Hilda was killed by a bear, perhaps to preserve the peace, or possibly to protect one of their own. The clergyman is intent on proving otherwise, and the evidence so rapidly stacks up supporting his view that once more the drama’s plausibility and audience tolerance get strained. At its best, the series is reminiscent of the TV version a few years ago of the author’s The Essex Serpent, with its evocation of the opposing attractions and fears presented by science and religion. In its low points, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Nevertheless, it appears to offer the response to that debated question: “Females, choose the animal.”
To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ currently.
