A heated discussion recently went viral across online platforms, after a user posed the question to women: would you rather find yourself stranded in a forest alongside a male or a bear? Similar to the best thought experiments, it revealed vastly opposing perspectives and experiences, highlighted chasms among genders, and was likely to induce a deep personal dilemma if you thought about it extensively. There was also the almost inevitable coda in which men of a certain stripe took to the internet to tell women how foolish they were for choosing the animal and went on to limn the punishments they merited for it. This at least allowed the women who had been hesitating about their decision to make it with a new confidence.
Dramatising the Scenario
The Bear-Cooking Tale effectively brings to life this clever little setup. The six-part drama is based on Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s 2018 book with the identical title (translated in 2020 for an English audience). It traces the struggles of a clergyman (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his household as they come to start a fresh religious post within Kengis, a remote settlement in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. Within a community lacking many joys, none of the locals especially warm to his puritanical approach to alcohol and dancing, yet it is his defense of impoverished people – especially the indigenous Sami, from among whom comes the preacher’s adopted son Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his belief in societal fairness and equal rights that places him on a collision course against the Kengis powers that be.
The Opposing Forces
Quickly in cahoots against him include the lawman Brahe (the performer), the fearsome mill owner Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed early on dismissing a recently mangled laborer with a month’s pay while he is still gibbering upon seeing of his pulped hand, and anyone else who profit from a populace who can be bought for a few bottles of liquor provided by the unsettling shopkeeper Lindmark (the actor). Although, to be fair, Lindmark’s creepiness pales once travelling artist the artist Beronius appears on the scene (the performer, delivering a performance of rare unsettling intensity). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – only a little more being stereotypes, they still serve as effective ones.
Narrative Development
Once the foundations of tension sown, it is time to proceed to narrative business. The maid employed by the doctor, the character Hilda (the actress), accordingly vanishes 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 of a man/maid-eating bear prowling the woodland circulate, yet the clergyman has another theory that he and Jussi embark to verify.
A Strange Creation
This Bear Drama is a slightly odd beast. It conjures a fine sense of the bleakness that lets distrust and prejudice and grim legends flourish based on local folklore that animals can be controlled or possessed by the spirits of humans. And it doesn’t idealising the tough existence led by the villagers, in which violence, whether that of nature or people, lurks constantly on the edges, waiting to erupt. Yet the personas seldom evolve more than ciphers – or maybe, while the conflicts amid fairness and revenge, rationality and religion, good and evil escalate, emblematic figures within a moral tale – preventing the entire production fully coming to life.
Tonal Inconsistencies
And then, there are the many tonally jarring instances where the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and discern the maid’s destiny becomes almost risible. He stands observing broken milk pots and clumps of hair within storage sheds as a fusion of the Belgian detective the English sleuth – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (none of whom had to taste a mixture of blood spatter and the boss’s spit to confirm that, yes, it was definitely coagulated blood on the site), prior to declaring his latest deduction and extracting a body out of a swamp.
Clashing Agendas
The village elite are bent on demonstrating that the maid was killed by an animal, perhaps to protect the peace, or possibly to shield one of their own. The pastor is bent on proving the opposite, and the evidence so rapidly accumulates supporting his view that again the show’s credibility and audience tolerance are tested. At its best, To Cook a Bear evokes memories of the adaptation some years back of the author’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the opposing allures and terrors offered by rational thought and belief. At its worst, it’s more like a bear-themed police procedural. Still, it does seem to provide the response to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”
The series streams on Disney+ currently.
