A intense discussion lately went viral across online platforms, after someone posed a query for females: would you rather find yourself stranded in a forest with a man or a bear? Like all the most engaging hypothetical scenarios, it exposed wildly different worldviews and experiences, highlighted divides between the sexes, and was likely cause a deep personal dilemma for anyone pondering on it for too long. There was also the almost inevitable follow-up in which some males came online to tell females how foolish they were to select the bear and went on to limn the punishments they merited for that choice. This at least allowed the women who had been hesitating over their choice to make it with a new confidence.
Portraying the Setup
The Bear-Cooking Tale skillfully dramatises this clever small premise. The six-part series is based on Scandinavian writer Mikael Niemi’s 2018 book of the same name (rendered in 2020 for an English audience). It traces the struggles of a pastor (the lead actor) and his family when they arrive to start a new ministry in Kengis, a remote village in Sweden’s north, in 1852. In a place lacking many joys, not one of the locals particularly warm to his strict approach to alcohol and dancing, yet it is his protection of impoverished people – especially the native Sami population, 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 in direct opposition against the Kengis powers that be.
The Antagonists
Soon in cahoots opposing him are the lawman Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (the actress), seen early on dismissing a newly injured laborer with minimal compensation as he remains gibbering upon seeing his crushed hand, and all others who profit from a community who can be bought for a few bottles of liquor provided by the creepy shopkeeper Lindmark (the actor). Although, to be fair, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes when itinerant painter Beronius appears on the scene (Simon J Berger, delivering a performance of exceptional unsettling intensity). If they are – similar to the clergyman – only a little more being stereotypes, they are at least effective ones.
Narrative Development
Once the foundations of tension sown, it is time to get down with the storyline. The maid from the doctor’s house, Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), accordingly vanishes from the woods. Indications of her escape and bear markings upon a trunk get discovered but she is nowhere to be seen. Rumours and fears regarding a human-devouring beast prowling the woodland spread, but the pastor holds a different view which he and his ward embark to prove.
A Strange Creation
To Cook a Bear is a slightly peculiar show. It conjures a strong impression of the bleakness that allows suspicion and prejudice and grim legends thrive based on local folklore that bears might be dominated or inhabited by the souls of men. And it doesn’t idealising the tough existence experienced by the villagers, where brutality, whether that of nature or people, always looms at the periphery, poised to explode. But the characters seldom evolve beyond symbols – or maybe, while the conflicts between justice and vengeance, logic and religion, virtue and evil escalate, representative characters within a moral tale – which stops the whole thing fully becoming immersive.
Tonal Inconsistencies
And then, exist numerous stylistically clashing instances where the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and determine Hilda’s fate becomes nearly laughable. He positions himself observing shattered containers and clumps of hair in hay barns as a fusion of Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – with Jussi a rather hapless Hastings-cum-Watson (neither of whom had to lick a blend of blood spatter and the boss’s spit to agree that, yes, it was clearly coagulated blood at the crime scene), before announcing his newest conclusion and pulling a corpse from a bog.
Clashing Agendas
The local leaders are bent on proving that Hilda was killed by an animal, maybe to preserve the peace, perhaps to shield a fellow elite. The clergyman is intent on proving otherwise, and the evidence so rapidly accumulates supporting his view that once more the show’s credibility and the viewer’s patience are tested. In its finest moments, the series is reminiscent of the TV version some years back of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the competing allures and fears offered by rational thought and belief. In its low points, it’s more like a bear-themed police procedural. Nevertheless, it does seem to offer the response to that debated question: “Females, choose the animal.”
To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ currently.