A heated discussion lately went viral on social media, following someone posed the question to women: would you rather find yourself stranded in the woods alongside a male or a bear? Like all the most engaging hypothetical scenarios, it revealed wildly different perspectives and experiences, illuminated divides among genders, and was likely cause an existential crisis for anyone pondering on it for too long. Additionally, there came the predictable follow-up where some males took to the internet to tell women how stupid they were to select the bear and proceeded to describe the consequences they merited for it. This at minimum allowed the women who had been hesitating about their decision to decide with a new confidence.
Portraying the Scenario
The Bear-Cooking Tale effectively dramatises this nifty small premise. The six-part drama is based from Scandinavian writer Mikael Niemi’s 2018 book with the identical title (rendered two years later for an English audience). It traces the tribulations of a clergyman (the lead actor) and his household as they come to begin a new ministry within Kengis, a remote village in Sweden’s north, during the mid-19th century. Within a community lacking many joys, none of the locals particularly appreciate his puritanical stance on drinking and revelry, yet it is his defense of impoverished people – particularly the indigenous Sami, from among whom hails the preacher’s adopted son Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in societal fairness and equality that sets him in direct opposition against the Kengis powers that be.
The Antagonists
Soon in cahoots opposing him include the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the fearsome factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (the actress), observed initially dismissing a recently mangled laborer with a month’s pay as he remains babbling upon seeing his crushed hand, and all others who profit from a populace easily swayed with some containers of the whisky sold by the creepy shopkeeper the merchant Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, to be fair, Lindmark’s eeriness pales once travelling artist the artist Beronius appears in the story (the performer, providing a performance of exceptional discomfiting power). If they are – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond than caricatures, they are at least potent archetypes.
Plot Progression
Once the foundations of tension sown, the moment arrives to proceed with the storyline. The servant employed by the doctor, Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), duly vanishes in the forest. Signs of her flight and animal scratches upon a trunk get discovered but she is completely absent. Gossip and fears regarding a human-devouring bear roaming the woodland circulate, but the pastor has another theory which he and his ward embark to prove.
An Odd Beast
To Cook a Bear is a somewhat peculiar show. It creates a fine sense of the desolation that allows distrust and prejudice and dark myths thrive from the native legend that bears can be controlled or possessed by the souls of humans. And it doesn’t romanticise the hardscrabble life led by the villagers, where brutality, be it from nature or mankind, lurks constantly on the edges, poised to explode. But the characters rarely become more than ciphers – or maybe, as the struggles amid fairness and revenge, rationality and religion, good and wickedness intensify, emblematic figures within a moral tale – which stops the entire production fully becoming immersive.
Tonal Inconsistencies
Additionally, there are the many stylistically clashing moments where the pastor’s ability to discover clues and determine the maid’s destiny turns almost risible. He positions himself observing shattered containers and clumps of hair in hay barns like a combined the Belgian detective the English sleuth – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (neither of whom had to taste a mixture of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to confirm that indeed, it was clearly coagulated blood at the crime scene), before announcing his newest conclusion and pulling a body out of a swamp.
Clashing Agendas
The local leaders are determined demonstrating that the maid met her end by an animal, maybe to preserve the peace, or possibly to protect a fellow elite. The pastor is intent on establishing otherwise, and the proof so rapidly accumulates in his favour that again the show’s credibility and the viewer’s patience get strained. In its finest moments, the series is reminiscent of the TV version a few years ago of the author’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the opposing allures and fears offered by science and belief. At its worst, it resembles a bear-themed police procedural. Still, it appears to offer the answer to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”
The series streams on Disney+ currently.
