A heated discussion lately spread widely on social media, after someone posed the question for females: would you rather find yourself stranded in a forest with a man or a bear? Similar to the best thought experiments, it exposed vastly opposing perspectives and experiences, illuminated divides between the sexes, and could easily to induce a deep personal dilemma if you thought on it extensively. There was also the predictable follow-up where some males took to the internet to tell women how foolish they had been to select the animal and went on to limn the consequences they merited for it. This at least enabled those females who had been hesitating over their choice to decide with renewed assurance.
Portraying the Scenario
The Bear-Cooking Tale effectively dramatises this nifty small premise. This six-episode drama is based on Scandinavian writer Mikael Niemi’s 2018 novel with the identical title (rendered 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 fresh religious post in Kengis, an isolated village in northern Sweden, in 1852. Within a community lacking many joys, not one of the inhabitants especially warm to his strict stance on alcohol and revelry, yet it is his protection of impoverished people – particularly the native Sami population, from which hails the preacher’s foster child Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in societal fairness and equal rights that places him in direct opposition against the Kengis local authorities.
The Opposing Forces
Quickly collaborating opposing him are the sheriff the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen early on firing a newly injured laborer with a month’s pay while he is still babbling upon seeing his crushed hand, and anyone else who profit from a community who can be bought for a few bottles of liquor provided by the creepy shopkeeper Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). However, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes once travelling artist Beronius arrives in the story (Simon J Berger, delivering a performance of exceptional unsettling intensity). If they are – like the pastor himself – only a little more than caricatures, they are at least potent archetypes.
Plot Progression
With the seeds of tension planted, the moment arrives to get down with the storyline. The maid employed by the doctor, Hilda (the actress), accordingly vanishes in the forest. Signs of her escape and bear markings on a tree get discovered yet she remains completely absent. Rumours and fears regarding a human-devouring bear prowling the woodland circulate, yet the clergyman holds a different view which he and his ward set out to verify.
An Odd Beast
To Cook a Bear is a somewhat peculiar show. It conjures a fine sense of the bleakness that allows distrust and bias and grim legends flourish from the native legend that bears might be dominated or possessed by the souls of men. It avoids romanticise the hardscrabble life led by the villagers, where violence, whether that of the wild or mankind, lurks constantly at the periphery, waiting to erupt. Yet the personas rarely become more than ciphers – or perhaps, while the conflicts between justice and vengeance, logic and religion, virtue and evil intensify, emblematic figures within a moral tale – which stops the whole thing fully becoming immersive.
Stylistic Shifts
And then, exist the many tonally jarring moments in which the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and discern the maid’s destiny turns nearly laughable. He stands observing shattered containers and clumps of hair in hay barns as a fusion of Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (neither of whom had to taste a mixture of blood spatter and the boss’s spit to confirm that, yes, it was definitely dried blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and pulling a corpse out of a swamp.
Clashing Agendas
The village elite are determined proving that Hilda was killed by an animal, perhaps to protect the peace, or possibly to protect one of their own. The pastor is intent on proving otherwise, and the evidence so quickly accumulates supporting his view that once more the drama’s plausibility and audience tolerance get strained. In its finest moments, the series evokes memories of the TV version some years back of the author’s The Essex Serpent, through its portrayal of the opposing attractions and terrors presented by science and religion. In its low points, it’s more like Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it does seem to provide the answer to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”
The series is on Disney+ currently.