A heated debate recently went viral across online platforms, following someone asked the question to women: which would you prefer find yourself stranded in a forest with a man or a bear? Similar to the best hypothetical scenarios, it exposed vastly opposing perspectives and experiences, highlighted divides between the sexes, and could easily cause an existential crisis if you thought on it extensively. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable coda in which some males came online to tell women how stupid they had been for choosing the bear and went on to limn the consequences they merited for that choice. This at least allowed those females who had been hesitating about their decision to make it with a new confidence.
Dramatising the Setup
The Bear-Cooking Tale effectively brings to life this nifty little setup. The six-part series is adapted from Scandinavian writer Mikael Niemi’s 2018 book of the same name (translated two years later for English readers). It traces the struggles of a clergyman (the lead actor) and his family when they arrive to start a fresh religious post in Kengis, an isolated settlement in Sweden’s north, in 1852. Within a community lacking many joys, not one of the inhabitants especially appreciate his puritanical stance on drinking and dancing, but it is his protection of impoverished people – especially the native Sami population, from among whom hails the pastor’s adopted son the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his belief in social justice and equality that places him in direct opposition with the Kengis local authorities.
The Antagonists
Quickly in cahoots against him are the lawman Brahe (the performer), the fearsome factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen initially firing a recently mangled laborer with a month’s pay as he remains babbling upon seeing of his pulped hand, and all others who profit from a populace who can be bought for a few bottles of the whisky sold by the unsettling store owner Lindmark (the actor). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes once travelling artist the artist Beronius arrives on the scene (the performer, providing a performance of rare discomfiting power). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – only a little more being stereotypes, they are at least effective ones.
Plot Progression
Once the foundations of tension sown, the moment arrives to get down to narrative business. The servant from the doctor’s house, the character Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), duly goes missing in the forest. Indications of her flight and bear markings upon a trunk are found yet she remains completely absent. Rumours and anxieties of a man/maid-eating bear prowling the woods circulate, yet the clergyman has another theory which he and his ward set out to prove.
A Strange Creation
To Cook a Bear is a somewhat peculiar show. It creates a fine sense of the bleakness that lets suspicion and prejudice and dark myths thrive from the native legend that bears can be controlled or possessed by the spirits of humans. It avoids idealising the tough existence led by the residents, where brutality, be it from the wild or people, lurks constantly on the edges, poised to explode. But the characters seldom evolve beyond symbols – or perhaps, while the conflicts amid fairness and vengeance, rationality and faith, good and evil escalate, emblematic figures in a fable – which stops the entire production truly becoming immersive.
Tonal Inconsistencies
And then, exist the many tonally jarring moments where the pastor’s ability to discover clues and discern the maid’s destiny becomes nearly laughable. He positions himself observing shattered containers and clumps of hair in hay barns like a combined Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – alongside Jussi a rather hapless assistant figure (none of whom were required to lick a mixture of blood droplets and saliva from his superior to confirm that, yes, it was clearly dried blood at the crime scene), before announcing his newest conclusion and extracting a body out of a swamp.
Opposing Goals
The village elite are bent on demonstrating that Hilda met her end by a bear, perhaps to preserve the peace, perhaps to protect one of their own. The pastor is intent on proving the opposite, and the evidence so quickly accumulates in his favour that again the show’s credibility and the viewer’s patience get strained. In its finest moments, the series evokes memories of the TV version a few years ago of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the opposing allures and fears offered by science and belief. At its worst, it’s more like Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it does seem to offer the response to that debated question: “Females, choose the animal.”
The series is on Disney+ currently.
