A heated discussion lately spread widely on social media, following a user asked the question for females: which would you prefer find yourself stranded in a forest alongside a male or with a bear? Similar to the best thought experiments, it exposed wildly different worldviews and experiences, illuminated divides among genders, and could easily cause an existential crisis if you thought about it extensively. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable follow-up where men of a certain stripe took to the internet to inform women how foolish they were for choosing the bear and proceeded to describe the consequences they deserved for that choice. This at minimum enabled those females who had been hesitating over their choice to decide with a new confidence.
Dramatising the Scenario
The Bear-Cooking Tale effectively dramatises this nifty small premise. This six-episode drama is adapted from Scandinavian writer Mikael Niemi’s 2018 book with the identical title (translated two years later for an English audience). It follows the tribulations of a clergyman (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his family when they arrive to begin a new ministry within Kengis, an isolated village in Sweden’s north, in 1852. In a place lacking many joys, none of the inhabitants especially warm to his puritanical stance on alcohol and dancing, but it is his defense of the poor – especially the indigenous Sami, from among whom hails the preacher’s foster child the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in societal fairness and equal rights that sets him on a collision course against the Kengis powers that be.
The Opposing Forces
Soon in cahoots against him include the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the fearsome factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (the actress), observed early on firing a newly injured worker with a month’s pay while he is still babbling at the sight his crushed hand, and anyone else who benefit from a community who can be bought with some containers of the whisky sold by the creepy store owner Lindmark (the actor). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness pales once itinerant painter the artist Beronius arrives in the story (the performer, providing a performance of rare unsettling intensity). While they remain – like the pastor himself – only a little more than caricatures, they still serve as effective ones.
Narrative Development
With the seeds of tension sown, it is time to proceed with the storyline. The maid employed by the doctor, the character Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), duly vanishes from the woods. Indications of her escape and bear markings on a tree are found but she is completely absent. Rumours and fears regarding a human-devouring beast roaming the woods spread, but the pastor has another theory that he and Jussi set out to verify.
An Odd Beast
This Bear Drama is a slightly peculiar show. It conjures a strong impression of the desolation that allows suspicion and prejudice and grim legends thrive based on local folklore that animals can be controlled or inhabited by the spirits of men. It avoids idealising the tough existence led by the residents, where brutality, whether that of the wild or people, always looms at the periphery, waiting to erupt. Yet the personas rarely become more than ciphers – or perhaps, as the struggles amid fairness and revenge, logic and religion, good and wickedness escalate, representative characters within a moral tale – which stops the entire production truly becoming immersive.
Tonal Inconsistencies
And then, exist numerous tonally jarring moments in which the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and determine the maid’s destiny turns almost risible. He positions himself observing shattered containers and clumps of hair within storage sheds like a combined the Belgian detective the English sleuth – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (neither of whom had to lick a mixture of blood droplets and the boss’s spit to confirm that indeed, it was definitely dried blood at the crime scene), before announcing his newest conclusion and extracting a body out of a swamp.
Clashing Agendas
The local leaders are determined proving that Hilda was killed by a bear, maybe to protect the calm, perhaps to shield one of their own. The clergyman is intent on establishing otherwise, and the evidence so quickly stacks up in his favour that again the drama’s plausibility and audience tolerance get strained. At its best, the series is reminiscent of the adaptation some years back of Sarah Perry’s The Essex Serpent, through its portrayal of the opposing allures and fears offered by rational thought and religion. At its worst, it’s more like Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Nevertheless, it does seem to offer the response to that debated question: “Females, choose the animal.”
To Cook a Bear is on Disney+ currently.
