An heated discussion lately went viral on social media, following someone posed the question for females: would you rather find yourself stranded in a forest alongside a male or a bear? Similar to the best hypothetical scenarios, it exposed vastly opposing worldviews and life encounters, illuminated chasms between the sexes, and could easily to induce a deep personal dilemma if you thought about it extensively. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable coda in which some males came online to inform females how stupid they were to select the bear and proceeded to describe the consequences they deserved for it. This at minimum enabled those females who were uncertain over their choice to make it with renewed assurance.
Dramatising the Scenario
The Bear-Cooking Tale effectively brings to life this nifty small premise. The six-part drama is adapted from Scandinavian writer Mikael Niemi’s 2018 book of the same name (rendered two years later for English readers). It traces the struggles of a pastor (the lead actor) and his household when they arrive to start a new ministry within Kengis, a remote village in Sweden’s north, in 1852. In a place with few pleasures, not one of the locals especially warm to his puritanical stance on alcohol and dancing, but it is his protection of the poor – especially the indigenous Sami, from among whom comes the pastor’s foster child the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his belief in social justice and equal rights that places him in direct opposition with the Kengis powers that be.
The Antagonists
Quickly collaborating opposing him are the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (the actress), observed initially dismissing a recently mangled laborer with minimal compensation while he is still gibbering upon seeing of his pulped hand, and all others who benefit from a community who can be bought for a few bottles of the whisky provided by the creepy store owner Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness pales when travelling artist Beronius arrives on the scene (the performer, delivering a performance of exceptional unsettling intensity). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond than caricatures, they still serve as effective ones.
Narrative Development
Once the foundations of conflict planted, the moment arrives to proceed with the storyline. The servant employed by the doctor, Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), accordingly goes missing from the woods. Signs of her escape and animal scratches upon a trunk are found yet she remains nowhere to be seen. Gossip and fears regarding a human-devouring beast roaming the woods spread, but the pastor holds a different view that he and Jussi embark to prove.
A Strange Creation
This Bear Drama is a slightly odd beast. It conjures a fine sense of the bleakness that allows suspicion and bias and grim legends flourish based on local folklore that bears might be dominated or inhabited by the spirits of humans. And it doesn’t idealising the tough existence experienced by the residents, where brutality, whether that of the wild or people, lurks constantly at the periphery, waiting to erupt. But the characters seldom evolve more than ciphers – or maybe, while the conflicts between justice and vengeance, logic and faith, virtue and evil intensify, representative characters within a moral tale – preventing the whole thing truly becoming immersive.
Tonal Inconsistencies
Additionally, exist numerous stylistically clashing instances where the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and discern the maid’s destiny turns almost risible. 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 (none of whom were required to lick a blend of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to agree that indeed, it was clearly dried blood on the site), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and extracting a body out of a swamp.
Clashing Agendas
The village elite are bent on proving that the maid was killed by a bear, maybe to protect the calm, or possibly to shield one of their own. The clergyman is intent on establishing the opposite, 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, To Cook a Bear is reminiscent of the TV version a few years ago of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the opposing allures and terrors offered by science and belief. At its worst, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Nevertheless, it does seem to offer the response to that debated question: “Females, choose the animal.”
The series is on Disney+ currently.
