A heated debate lately spread widely on social media, after someone posed the question for females: would you rather find yourself stranded in the woods alongside a male or a bear? Similar to the most engaging thought experiments, it exposed vastly opposing worldviews and life encounters, highlighted divides between the sexes, and was likely to induce an existential crisis for anyone pondering on it extensively. There was also the predictable follow-up where some males came online to inform women how stupid they had been to select the bear and proceeded to limn the consequences they deserved for it. This at minimum allowed the women who were uncertain about their decision to decide with a new confidence.
Dramatising the Scenario
The Bear-Cooking Tale effectively dramatises this nifty small premise. The six-part series is adapted on Scandinavian writer Mikael Niemi’s 2018 novel of the same name (translated in 2020 for an English audience). It follows the struggles of a pastor (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his family as they come to start a fresh religious post within Kengis, a remote settlement in Sweden’s north, during the mid-19th century. Within a community with few pleasures, none of the locals particularly appreciate his strict approach to alcohol and dancing, yet it is his defense of the poor – especially the native Sami population, from which comes the preacher’s foster child the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in social justice and equality that places him in direct opposition against the Kengis powers that be.
The Opposing Forces
Quickly collaborating opposing him include the sheriff the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the intimidating factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (the actress), seen initially firing a recently mangled laborer with minimal compensation as he remains gibbering at the sight of his pulped hand, and anyone else who profit from a community who can be bought with some containers of liquor provided by the creepy shopkeeper the merchant Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). However, to be fair, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes when travelling artist the artist Beronius arrives in the story (the performer, providing an acting turn of exceptional discomfiting power). If they are – like the pastor himself – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, they still serve as effective ones.
Plot Progression
With the seeds of conflict planted, the moment arrives to proceed to narrative business. The maid employed by the doctor, Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), duly vanishes in the forest. Indications of her flight and bear markings on a tree get discovered yet she remains completely absent. Gossip and fears regarding a human-devouring beast prowling the woods spread, but the pastor has another theory that he and Jussi embark to prove.
A Strange Creation
This Bear Drama is a somewhat peculiar show. It conjures a fine sense of the desolation that allows suspicion and bias and grim legends thrive based on local folklore that animals might be dominated or possessed by the souls of men. It avoids idealising the tough existence experienced by the residents, in which brutality, whether that of nature or mankind, always looms on the edges, waiting to erupt. But the characters rarely become beyond symbols – or perhaps, while the conflicts amid fairness and vengeance, rationality and faith, good and wickedness escalate, representative characters within a moral tale – preventing the entire production truly becoming immersive.
Stylistic Shifts
And then, there are numerous stylistically clashing moments in which the clergyman’s skill to discover clues and determine the maid’s destiny turns nearly laughable. He stands observing broken milk pots and clumps of hair in hay barns like a combined Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – with Jussi a rather hapless assistant figure (neither of whom were required to taste a mixture of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to confirm that, yes, it was clearly dried blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his latest deduction and pulling a body 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 one of their own. The clergyman is bent on proving otherwise, and the proof so rapidly stacks up in his favour that once more the drama’s plausibility and audience tolerance are tested. In its finest moments, To Cook a Bear is reminiscent of the TV version a few years ago of the author’s The Essex Serpent, through its portrayal of the competing attractions and terrors offered by rational thought and belief. In its low points, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it appears to provide the response to the earlier query: “Females, choose the animal.”
To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ now.
