An intense discussion recently went viral across online platforms, following a user posed a query to women: which would you prefer be lost in the woods alongside a male or with a bear? Like all the most engaging thought experiments, it exposed vastly opposing worldviews and life encounters, illuminated divides among genders, and was likely cause an existential crisis for anyone pondering on it for too long. There was also the predictable follow-up in which men of a certain stripe took to the internet to tell females how foolish they had been for choosing the bear and went on to limn the consequences they deserved for that choice. This at least allowed those females who were uncertain about their decision to make it with a new confidence.
Dramatising the Scenario
The Bear-Cooking Tale skillfully brings to life this clever small premise. This six-episode series is adapted on Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s 2018 book with the identical title (rendered in 2020 for English readers). It traces the struggles of a clergyman (the lead actor) and his household as they come to start a fresh religious post in Kengis, an isolated village in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. In a place with few pleasures, not one of the inhabitants particularly appreciate his puritanical stance on alcohol and revelry, yet it is his protection of impoverished people – particularly the native Sami population, from among whom hails the pastor’s adopted son the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his conviction in societal fairness and equal rights that sets him in direct opposition with the Kengis powers that be.
The Antagonists
Quickly in cahoots against him are the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen early on dismissing a recently mangled laborer with minimal compensation while he is still gibbering at the sight his crushed hand, and anyone else who benefit from a populace easily swayed with some containers of liquor provided by the creepy store owner Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, to be fair, Lindmark’s eeriness pales once itinerant painter Beronius arrives on the scene (Simon J Berger, providing a performance of rare discomfiting power). While they remain – like the pastor himself – only a little more being stereotypes, they still serve as potent archetypes.
Plot Progression
With the seeds of tension planted, it is time to get down to narrative business. The maid employed by the doctor, Hilda (the actress), duly goes missing in the forest. Indications of her escape and bear markings upon a trunk get discovered yet she remains completely absent. Gossip and fears of a man/maid-eating bear roaming the woodland circulate, yet the clergyman has another theory which he and his ward set out to prove.
An Odd Beast
This Bear Drama is a slightly peculiar show. It creates a fine sense of the desolation that allows distrust and bias and dark myths thrive based on local folklore that animals 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, always looms on the edges, waiting to erupt. But the characters seldom evolve more than ciphers – or perhaps, while the conflicts between justice and revenge, logic and religion, good and evil escalate, emblematic figures within a moral tale – which stops the entire production fully coming to life.
Tonal Inconsistencies
Additionally, exist numerous tonally jarring instances in which the clergyman’s skill to discover clues and determine the maid’s destiny becomes almost risible. He positions himself observing broken milk pots and strands of fur in hay barns as a fusion of Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – alongside Jussi a rather hapless Hastings-cum-Watson (neither of whom had to taste a blend of blood spatter and the boss’s spit to confirm that, yes, it was definitely dried blood on the site), before announcing his newest conclusion and extracting a body out of a swamp.
Opposing Goals
The village elite are determined proving that the maid met her end by a bear, perhaps to preserve the peace, perhaps to protect a fellow elite. The clergyman is intent on proving otherwise, and the proof so rapidly stacks up in his favour that once more the show’s credibility and audience tolerance get strained. In its finest moments, the series is reminiscent of the adaptation some years back of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the competing attractions and fears presented by rational thought and religion. At its worst, it’s more like a bear-themed police procedural. Still, it does seem to offer the response to that debated question: “Females, choose the animal.”
To Cook a Bear is on Disney+ currently.
