An heated debate recently went viral on social media, after a user posed the question for females: which would you prefer be lost in a forest with a man or with a bear? Like all the most engaging thought experiments, it exposed wildly different perspectives and life encounters, highlighted divides between the sexes, and was likely to induce an existential crisis if you thought on it for too long. There was also the almost inevitable coda in which some males came online to tell women how stupid they were to select the animal and proceeded to describe the consequences they deserved for it. This at minimum allowed those females who were uncertain over their choice to decide with renewed assurance.
Dramatising the Scenario
The Bear-Cooking Tale skillfully dramatises this nifty small premise. The six-part series is adapted 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 (the lead actor) and his household as they come to start a new ministry within Kengis, an isolated village in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. In a place lacking many joys, none of the inhabitants particularly appreciate his puritanical stance on alcohol and dancing, but it is his protection of impoverished people – especially the indigenous Sami, from which hails the pastor’s adopted son the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his conviction in societal fairness and equality that sets him in direct opposition against the Kengis local authorities.
The Antagonists
Quickly collaborating against him include the lawman the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the intimidating mill owner the matron Sjödahl (the actress), observed early on firing a newly injured laborer with a month’s pay while he is still gibbering upon seeing of his pulped hand, and all others who profit from a community easily swayed for a few bottles of the whisky provided by the unsettling shopkeeper the merchant Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes when travelling artist Beronius arrives in the story (Simon J Berger, providing a performance of rare unsettling intensity). While they remain – like the pastor himself – only a little more being stereotypes, they still serve as effective ones.
Narrative Development
Once the foundations of tension sown, it is time to proceed with the storyline. The maid from the doctor’s house, Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), duly goes missing from the woods. Indications of her escape and bear markings upon a trunk are found but she is nowhere to be seen. Rumours and anxieties of a man/maid-eating bear prowling the woodland circulate, but the pastor has another theory which he and his ward set out to verify.
An Odd Beast
This Bear Drama is a somewhat peculiar show. It creates a fine sense of the bleakness that lets distrust and prejudice and dark myths flourish based on local folklore that bears can be controlled or possessed by the spirits of men. It avoids idealising the tough existence experienced by the villagers, where violence, whether that of the wild or people, lurks constantly at the periphery, poised to explode. But the characters seldom evolve beyond symbols – or maybe, as the struggles between justice and revenge, rationality and faith, good and evil intensify, emblematic figures within a moral tale – preventing the entire production truly becoming immersive.
Tonal Inconsistencies
Additionally, there are numerous stylistically clashing instances in which the pastor’s ability to discover clues and determine Hilda’s fate turns nearly laughable. He stands observing broken milk pots and strands of fur in hay barns as a fusion of Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (none of whom were required to taste a blend of blood spatter and the boss’s spit to confirm that indeed, it was clearly coagulated blood on the site), before announcing his latest deduction and extracting a body out of a swamp.
Clashing Agendas
The local leaders are bent on demonstrating that Hilda met her end by a bear, maybe to preserve the peace, or possibly to shield one of their own. The pastor is bent on establishing the opposite, and the proof so rapidly stacks up in his favour that again the drama’s plausibility and the viewer’s patience are tested. In its finest moments, To Cook a Bear is reminiscent of the TV version a few years ago of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the competing attractions and fears presented by science and belief. At its worst, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it appears to provide the answer to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”
To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ now.
