A intense discussion lately went viral on social media, following someone asked a query to women: which would you prefer find yourself stranded in the woods alongside a male or a bear? Similar to the best hypothetical scenarios, it exposed wildly different perspectives and life encounters, highlighted divides among genders, and could easily cause an existential crisis for anyone pondering about it extensively. There was also the almost inevitable follow-up in which some males came online to inform women how foolish they had been for choosing the animal and proceeded to limn the consequences they deserved for that choice. This at minimum allowed the women who were uncertain about their decision to decide with a new confidence.
Portraying the Setup
The Bear-Cooking Tale skillfully dramatises this nifty little setup. This six-episode series is adapted from Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s 2018 book of the same name (translated in 2020 for an English audience). It traces the struggles of a clergyman (the lead actor) and his family when they arrive to start a new ministry in Kengis, a remote settlement in Sweden’s north, in 1852. In a place with few pleasures, not one of the inhabitants particularly appreciate his strict stance on drinking and dancing, yet it is his defense of impoverished people – particularly the indigenous Sami, from which comes the preacher’s adopted son the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his conviction in societal fairness and equal rights that places him in direct opposition with the Kengis powers that be.
The Opposing Forces
Soon in cahoots against him are the lawman the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the fearsome factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen early on dismissing a recently mangled worker with a month’s pay as he remains babbling at the sight of his pulped hand, and anyone else who benefit from a community easily swayed with some containers of liquor sold by the creepy store owner Lindmark (the actor). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness pales when travelling artist the artist Beronius arrives on the scene (Simon J Berger, delivering a performance of exceptional discomfiting power). While they remain – like the pastor himself – only a little more than caricatures, they are at least potent archetypes.
Plot Progression
With the seeds of tension sown, the moment arrives to get down with the storyline. The servant employed by the doctor, the character Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), accordingly vanishes from the woods. Signs of her flight and bear markings on a tree get discovered but she is nowhere to be seen. Gossip and anxieties regarding a human-devouring bear roaming the woodland spread, but the pastor has another theory that he and Jussi embark to prove.
An Odd Beast
This Bear Drama is a slightly peculiar show. It conjures a fine sense of the bleakness that allows suspicion and bias and dark myths flourish based on local folklore that animals can be controlled or possessed by the souls of men. It avoids romanticise the hardscrabble life experienced by the residents, in which violence, be it from nature or people, lurks constantly on the edges, waiting to erupt. But the characters seldom evolve more than ciphers – or perhaps, as the struggles amid fairness and vengeance, logic and religion, good and wickedness escalate, emblematic figures in a fable – which stops the entire production fully becoming immersive.
Stylistic Shifts
Additionally, exist numerous stylistically clashing moments where the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and discern the maid’s destiny becomes nearly laughable. He stands observing shattered containers and clumps of hair within storage sheds like a combined the Belgian detective and Sherlock Holmes – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (none of whom had to taste a blend of blood droplets and saliva from his superior to agree that, yes, it was clearly coagulated blood on the site), before announcing his newest conclusion and extracting a corpse out of a swamp.
Opposing Goals
The village elite are determined demonstrating that Hilda was killed by an animal, maybe to preserve the calm, or possibly to protect a fellow elite. The clergyman is bent on proving the opposite, and the evidence so quickly stacks up in his favour that again the drama’s plausibility and the viewer’s patience get strained. In its finest moments, To Cook a Bear is reminiscent of the TV version some years back of the author’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the competing allures and terrors presented by science and belief. At its worst, it’s more like a bear-themed police procedural. Nevertheless, it does seem to offer the response to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”
To Cook a Bear is on Disney+ now.
