A heated discussion lately went viral on social media, after someone asked the question to women: would you rather find yourself stranded in a forest alongside a male or a bear? Like all the best thought experiments, it exposed vastly opposing perspectives and experiences, illuminated divides among genders, and could easily to induce an existential crisis for anyone pondering about it for too long. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable follow-up where some males took to the internet to tell females how foolish they had been to select the bear and went on to describe the consequences they merited for that choice. This at minimum enabled the women who had been hesitating about their decision to decide with renewed assurance.
Portraying the Scenario
The Bear-Cooking Tale skillfully dramatises this nifty little setup. This six-episode drama is based from Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s 2018 novel of the same name (translated in 2020 for English readers). It traces the tribulations of a clergyman (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his household when they arrive to begin a new ministry in Kengis, an isolated village in northern Sweden, in 1852. Within a community with few pleasures, none of the locals especially appreciate his strict stance on drinking and revelry, but it is his defense of impoverished people – especially the indigenous Sami, from which comes the pastor’s adopted son the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his conviction in social justice and equal rights that sets him in direct opposition with the Kengis local authorities.
The Opposing Forces
Soon in cahoots opposing him are the lawman the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the intimidating factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed early on dismissing a newly injured worker with minimal compensation while he is still babbling at the sight of his pulped hand, and all others who profit from a populace easily swayed with some containers of the whisky provided by the unsettling shopkeeper the merchant Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, to be fair, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes when itinerant painter the artist Beronius appears on the scene (Simon J Berger, delivering a performance of exceptional discomfiting power). If they are – like the pastor himself – only a little more than caricatures, they still serve as effective ones.
Plot Progression
With the seeds of tension planted, the moment arrives to proceed to narrative business. The maid from the doctor’s house, the character Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), accordingly vanishes from the woods. Indications of her flight and animal scratches on a tree are found but she is completely absent. Rumours and fears regarding a human-devouring beast prowling the woodland circulate, but the pastor holds a different view which he and his ward embark to prove.
A Strange Creation
This Bear Drama is a somewhat peculiar show. It creates a strong impression of the bleakness that allows distrust and prejudice and dark myths thrive from the native legend that animals can be controlled or possessed by the souls of humans. And it doesn’t romanticise the tough existence experienced by the villagers, in which brutality, be it from the wild or people, lurks constantly on the edges, waiting to erupt. But the characters rarely become beyond symbols – or maybe, while the conflicts amid fairness and vengeance, rationality and religion, virtue and wickedness escalate, representative characters within a moral tale – preventing the whole thing truly coming to life.
Tonal Inconsistencies
And then, exist the many stylistically clashing moments in which the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and determine the maid’s destiny becomes almost risible. He stands looking at broken milk pots and strands of fur within storage sheds like a combined Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – alongside Jussi a rather hapless assistant figure (neither of whom were required to taste a mixture of blood spatter and the boss’s spit to confirm that indeed, it was definitely dried blood on the site), before announcing his latest deduction and pulling a corpse out of a swamp.
Clashing Agendas
The village elite are bent on demonstrating that Hilda was killed by a bear, maybe to protect the calm, perhaps to protect one of their own. The pastor is bent on establishing otherwise, and the evidence so rapidly accumulates in his favour that again the drama’s plausibility and audience tolerance are tested. At its best, To Cook a Bear is reminiscent of the TV version some years back of the author’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the competing attractions and terrors presented by science and religion. At its worst, it resembles a bear-themed police procedural. Still, it does seem to provide the response to that debated question: “Females, choose the animal.”
The series streams on Disney+ currently.
