A intense discussion lately went viral across online platforms, following someone posed a query for females: would you rather find yourself stranded in a forest alongside a male or with a bear? Similar to the most engaging hypothetical scenarios, it exposed vastly opposing perspectives and life encounters, illuminated chasms among genders, and was likely cause an existential crisis for anyone pondering about it for too long. There was also the predictable coda in which some males took to the internet to inform females how foolish they were to select the bear and went on to describe the consequences they merited for it. This at least enabled those females who had been hesitating over their choice to decide with a new confidence.
Dramatising the Setup
The Bear-Cooking Tale skillfully dramatises this clever small premise. The six-part drama is based from Scandinavian writer Mikael Niemi’s 2018 book of the same name (translated in 2020 for an English audience). It traces the struggles of a pastor (the lead actor) and his family as they come to begin a new ministry within Kengis, a remote village in northern Sweden, in 1852. Within a community lacking many joys, none of the inhabitants especially appreciate his strict stance on drinking and revelry, but it is his protection of the poor – particularly the native Sami population, from among whom comes the pastor’s adopted son the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in social justice and equal rights that places him on a collision course with the Kengis powers that be.
The Antagonists
Soon collaborating against him are the lawman the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the intimidating mill owner Madam Sjödahl (the actress), observed initially dismissing a recently mangled worker with minimal compensation while he is still gibbering upon seeing of his pulped hand, and all others who profit from a community easily swayed with some containers of liquor provided by the creepy store owner Lindmark (the actor). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness pales once travelling artist the artist Beronius appears on the scene (the performer, delivering an acting turn of exceptional discomfiting power). If they are – similar to the clergyman – only a little more than caricatures, they still serve as effective ones.
Narrative Development
Once the foundations of tension planted, the moment arrives to proceed with the storyline. The maid employed by the doctor, the character Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), accordingly vanishes in the forest. Indications of her flight and bear markings upon a trunk get discovered but she is nowhere to be seen. Rumours and anxieties regarding a human-devouring beast roaming the woodland spread, but the pastor has another theory which he and his ward set out to prove.
A Strange Creation
To Cook a Bear is a slightly odd beast. It creates a strong impression of the desolation that lets suspicion and prejudice and dark myths flourish from the native legend that bears might be dominated or inhabited by the souls of humans. It avoids romanticise the tough existence led by the villagers, where brutality, be it from nature or people, lurks constantly at the periphery, poised to explode. Yet the personas rarely become beyond symbols – or perhaps, while the conflicts amid fairness and vengeance, logic and faith, good and wickedness escalate, representative characters within a moral tale – which stops the whole thing fully coming to life.
Tonal Inconsistencies
Additionally, exist the many tonally jarring instances where the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and determine the maid’s destiny becomes nearly laughable. He stands observing broken milk pots and strands of fur in hay barns like a combined the Belgian detective and Sherlock Holmes – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (none of whom were required to lick a blend of blood droplets and the boss’s spit to confirm that, yes, it was definitely dried blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his latest deduction and pulling a corpse from a bog.
Opposing Goals
The village elite are bent on demonstrating that the maid was killed by an animal, perhaps to preserve the peace, perhaps to protect one of their own. The pastor is intent on establishing the opposite, and the evidence so quickly accumulates in his favour that once more the show’s credibility and audience tolerance get strained. At its best, the series is reminiscent of the adaptation some years back of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the opposing allures and fears presented by science and religion. In its low points, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Nevertheless, it appears to offer the answer to that debated question: “Ladies, take the bear.”
The series is on Disney+ now.
