A heated discussion lately went viral across online platforms, after someone posed the question to women: which would you prefer be lost in the woods with a man or with a bear? Similar to the best hypothetical scenarios, it exposed wildly different worldviews and life encounters, highlighted divides between the sexes, and was likely cause a deep personal dilemma if you thought on it for too long. There was also the predictable coda where men of a certain stripe took to the internet to tell women how stupid they were to select the bear and went on to describe the punishments they deserved for that choice. This at minimum allowed the women who were uncertain over their choice to decide with renewed assurance.
Dramatising the Setup
The Bear-Cooking Tale effectively brings to life this clever little setup. This six-episode series is based from Scandinavian writer Mikael Niemi’s 2018 book with the identical title (translated two years later for English readers). It follows the struggles of a clergyman (the lead actor) and his household when they arrive to begin a new ministry within Kengis, an isolated settlement in northern Sweden, in 1852. Within a community lacking many joys, not one of the locals particularly appreciate his strict stance on alcohol and revelry, but it is his defense of the poor – especially the native Sami population, from among whom hails the preacher’s adopted son Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in social justice and equal rights that places him on a collision course against the Kengis local authorities.
The Opposing Forces
Soon in cahoots opposing him are the lawman Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (the actress), observed early on dismissing a newly injured worker with minimal compensation while he is still babbling at the sight his crushed hand, and all others who profit from a community easily swayed with some containers of liquor sold by the creepy shopkeeper Lindmark (the actor). However, to be fair, Lindmark’s eeriness pales when travelling artist Beronius arrives on the scene (Simon J Berger, providing an acting turn of exceptional discomfiting power). If they are – like the pastor himself – only a little more than caricatures, they are at least effective ones.
Plot Progression
With the seeds of conflict sown, it is time to get down with the storyline. The servant employed by the doctor, Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), accordingly vanishes in the forest. Signs of her flight and animal scratches upon a trunk are found yet she remains completely absent. Rumours and anxieties regarding a human-devouring beast prowling the woodland circulate, but the pastor holds a different view which he and his ward embark to verify.
A Strange Creation
This Bear Drama is a somewhat peculiar show. It creates a strong impression of the desolation that lets distrust and prejudice and dark myths flourish from the native legend that animals can be controlled or possessed by the spirits of men. And it doesn’t idealising the hardscrabble life led by the residents, where brutality, be it from the wild or mankind, always looms at the periphery, waiting to erupt. But the characters seldom evolve beyond symbols – or maybe, while the conflicts between justice and vengeance, rationality and faith, good and evil escalate, emblematic figures within a moral tale – which stops the whole thing truly coming to life.
Tonal Inconsistencies
Additionally, there are the many stylistically clashing instances in which the clergyman’s skill to discover clues and discern the maid’s destiny becomes nearly laughable. He stands looking at broken milk pots and clumps of hair within storage sheds like a combined Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (neither of whom were required to lick a mixture of blood droplets and the boss’s spit to agree that indeed, it was clearly dried blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his latest deduction and pulling a corpse out of a swamp.
Opposing Goals
The local leaders are bent on demonstrating that Hilda was killed by an animal, maybe to preserve the calm, or possibly to shield a fellow elite. The clergyman is bent on proving otherwise, and the evidence so quickly accumulates in his favour that once more the drama’s plausibility and audience tolerance are tested. At its best, To Cook a Bear is reminiscent of the TV version a few years ago of the author’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the competing attractions and fears offered by science and religion. At its worst, it’s more like a bear-themed police procedural. Nevertheless, it does seem to provide the response to that debated question: “Ladies, take the bear.”
The series is on Disney+ currently.
