A heated discussion lately went viral across online platforms, after a user posed a query to women: would you rather find yourself stranded in the woods alongside a male or with a bear? Similar to the most engaging hypothetical scenarios, it exposed wildly different perspectives and experiences, highlighted chasms between the sexes, and could easily cause an existential crisis for anyone pondering about it for too long. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable follow-up where men of a certain stripe took to the internet to tell women how foolish they had been for choosing the animal and proceeded to limn the punishments they merited for it. This at least allowed those females who had been hesitating about their decision to make it with renewed assurance.
Dramatising the Setup
The Bear-Cooking Tale skillfully brings to life this nifty little setup. The six-part series is based on Scandinavian writer Mikael Niemi’s 2018 novel of the same name (translated in 2020 for an English audience). It traces the tribulations of a pastor (the lead actor) and his family when they arrive to start a new ministry in Kengis, an isolated settlement in Sweden’s north, during the mid-19th century. Within a community lacking many joys, none of the inhabitants particularly warm to his strict stance on alcohol and revelry, but it is his protection of the poor – especially the indigenous Sami, from which hails the pastor’s adopted son the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his conviction in societal fairness and equal rights that places him on a collision course against the Kengis local authorities.
The Antagonists
Soon in cahoots opposing him include the lawman Brahe (the performer), the intimidating mill owner Madam Sjödahl (the actress), seen initially dismissing a recently mangled worker with a month’s pay as he remains gibbering upon seeing his crushed hand, and anyone else who benefit 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 creepiness pales once itinerant painter the artist Beronius arrives in the story (the performer, delivering a performance of exceptional discomfiting power). While they remain – like the pastor himself – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, they still serve as effective ones.
Narrative Development
Once the foundations of conflict planted, it is time to proceed with the storyline. The maid employed by the doctor, Hilda (the actress), accordingly goes missing in the forest. Signs of her flight and animal scratches on a tree are found but she is nowhere to be seen. Gossip and fears regarding a human-devouring bear roaming the woodland circulate, but the pastor holds a different view which he and his ward embark to prove.
An Odd Beast
To Cook a Bear is a somewhat odd beast. It conjures a strong impression of the bleakness that allows distrust and prejudice and dark myths thrive from the native legend that bears might be dominated or possessed by the souls of men. And it doesn’t idealising the tough existence experienced by the residents, in which violence, whether that of the wild or mankind, lurks constantly on the edges, poised to explode. But the characters rarely become more than ciphers – or maybe, while the conflicts amid fairness and vengeance, rationality and religion, virtue and wickedness escalate, representative characters in a fable – preventing the entire production fully coming to life.
Tonal Inconsistencies
And then, there are numerous tonally jarring moments in which the pastor’s ability to discover clues and discern the maid’s destiny becomes nearly laughable. He stands looking at shattered containers and clumps of hair in hay barns like a combined Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (neither of whom were required to lick a blend of blood droplets and the boss’s spit to confirm that indeed, it was definitely dried blood on the site), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and pulling a corpse from a bog.
Clashing Agendas
The village elite are determined proving that Hilda met her end by a bear, maybe to protect the peace, perhaps to protect one of their own. The clergyman is intent on establishing the opposite, and the evidence so rapidly accumulates supporting his view that again the drama’s plausibility and the viewer’s patience get strained. At its best, the series is reminiscent of the adaptation some years back of the author’s The Essex Serpent, through its portrayal of the competing allures and fears offered by science and religion. In its low points, it resembles a bear-themed police procedural. Still, it does seem to offer the answer to that debated question: “Females, choose the animal.”
To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ currently.
