An intense discussion lately spread widely across online platforms, following someone posed the question for females: which would you prefer find yourself stranded in the woods with a man or a bear? Like all the best thought experiments, it revealed vastly opposing perspectives and life encounters, illuminated chasms between the sexes, and could easily cause an existential crisis if you thought about it extensively. Additionally, there came the predictable follow-up where some males came online to inform females how foolish they had been to select the bear and went on to describe the consequences they deserved for it. This at least enabled those females who were uncertain about their decision to make it with a new confidence.
Portraying the Setup
The Bear-Cooking Tale skillfully brings to life this nifty little setup. This six-episode series is based from Swedish author 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 as they come to start a fresh religious post in Kengis, an isolated village in northern Sweden, in 1852. Within a community with few pleasures, none of the locals particularly appreciate his strict stance on drinking and dancing, but it is his defense of impoverished people – especially the native Sami population, from which hails the preacher’s adopted son Jussi (the young actor) – and his conviction in societal fairness and equality that sets him in direct opposition with the Kengis local authorities.
The Antagonists
Soon in cahoots opposing him are the lawman the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the fearsome factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen initially dismissing a newly injured worker with minimal compensation while he is still gibbering upon seeing of his pulped hand, and all others who profit from a populace who can be bought for a few bottles of the whisky sold by the creepy store owner the merchant Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, to be fair, Lindmark’s creepiness pales once travelling artist Beronius arrives on the scene (the performer, delivering an acting turn of exceptional discomfiting power). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – only a little more being stereotypes, they still serve as potent archetypes.
Narrative Development
With the seeds of tension planted, the moment arrives to get down with the storyline. The servant from the doctor’s house, the character Hilda (the actress), accordingly vanishes in the forest. Signs of her flight and animal scratches upon a trunk are found yet she remains completely absent. Rumours and fears regarding a human-devouring beast roaming the woodland circulate, yet the clergyman holds a different view which he and his ward set out to prove.
A Strange Creation
This Bear Drama is a slightly peculiar show. It creates a fine sense of the desolation that allows suspicion and prejudice and grim legends thrive from the native legend that animals might be dominated or inhabited by the souls of men. And it doesn’t romanticise the hardscrabble life experienced by the residents, where violence, be it from nature or mankind, lurks constantly on the edges, waiting to erupt. Yet the personas rarely become more than ciphers – or maybe, while the conflicts amid fairness and vengeance, rationality and faith, virtue and wickedness escalate, emblematic figures in a fable – preventing the whole thing truly becoming immersive.
Stylistic Shifts
Additionally, there are the many tonally jarring moments in which the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and determine the maid’s destiny turns nearly laughable. He stands looking at broken milk pots and strands of fur in hay barns as a fusion of the Belgian detective the English sleuth – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (none of whom had to taste a mixture of blood spatter 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 extracting a corpse out of a swamp.
Opposing Goals
The village elite are determined demonstrating that Hilda met her end by an animal, perhaps to protect the peace, perhaps to protect a fellow elite. The clergyman is bent on proving the opposite, and the evidence so rapidly stacks up 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 adaptation a few years ago of the author’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the competing attractions and terrors presented by rational thought and belief. At its worst, it’s more like a bear-themed police procedural. Still, it does seem to offer the response to the earlier query: “Females, choose the animal.”
To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ now.
