An heated debate lately went viral across online platforms, after someone posed the question to women: would you rather be lost in the woods alongside a male or a bear? Similar to the best thought experiments, it exposed wildly different worldviews and experiences, illuminated chasms between the sexes, and could easily to induce a deep personal dilemma if you thought about it extensively. There was also the almost inevitable coda where some males came online to inform females how stupid they were to select the bear and proceeded to limn the punishments they merited for that choice. This at minimum enabled those females who had been hesitating over their choice to make it with a new confidence.
Portraying the Setup
The Bear-Cooking Tale skillfully brings to life this nifty small premise. The six-part drama is adapted from Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s 2018 book of the same name (rendered in 2020 for an English audience). It follows the struggles of a clergyman (the lead actor) and his household as they come to start a fresh religious post within Kengis, an isolated settlement in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. In a place lacking many joys, not one of the locals particularly warm to his puritanical approach to alcohol and dancing, yet it is his protection of the poor – particularly the indigenous Sami, from among whom hails the pastor’s adopted son Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his belief in social justice and equal rights that sets him in direct opposition against the Kengis local authorities.
The Antagonists
Soon in cahoots opposing him are the lawman Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the fearsome mill owner the matron Sjödahl (the actress), observed early on firing a newly injured laborer with minimal compensation as he remains gibbering at the sight his crushed hand, and all others who benefit from a community who can be bought for a few bottles of the whisky sold by the unsettling store owner the merchant Lindmark (the actor). However, to be fair, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes when itinerant painter Beronius appears on the scene (the performer, delivering an acting turn of exceptional discomfiting power). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, they still serve as effective ones.
Plot Progression
With the seeds of conflict sown, it is time to proceed to narrative business. The maid employed by the doctor, the character Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), duly vanishes in the forest. Indications of her escape and bear markings on a tree get discovered but she is completely absent. Rumours and fears of a man/maid-eating bear prowling the woods circulate, but the pastor holds a different view which he and his ward embark to prove.
An Odd Beast
This Bear Drama is a somewhat peculiar show. It conjures a strong impression of the bleakness that allows distrust and bias and dark myths thrive based on local folklore that animals might be dominated or inhabited by the spirits of humans. It avoids idealising the hardscrabble life led by the residents, in which brutality, be it from nature or mankind, lurks constantly at the periphery, waiting to erupt. Yet the personas rarely become more than ciphers – or maybe, while the conflicts amid fairness and revenge, rationality and faith, good and wickedness escalate, representative characters within a moral tale – which stops the whole thing truly coming to life.
Stylistic Shifts
And then, there are numerous stylistically clashing instances in which the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and discern Hilda’s fate becomes nearly laughable. He positions himself looking at broken milk pots and strands of fur in hay barns like a combined the Belgian detective the English sleuth – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (none of whom were required to taste a mixture of blood droplets and saliva from his superior to agree that indeed, it was definitely dried blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and extracting a body from a bog.
Clashing Agendas
The local leaders are determined demonstrating that the maid was killed by an animal, maybe to protect the peace, or possibly to shield a fellow elite. The clergyman is bent on proving otherwise, and the evidence so rapidly accumulates in his favour that again the show’s credibility and the viewer’s patience get strained. At its best, To Cook a Bear evokes memories of the adaptation some years back of the author’s The Essex Serpent, with its evocation of the opposing allures and terrors offered by rational thought and religion. In its low points, it’s more like a bear-themed police procedural. Still, it does seem to provide the answer to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”
To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ now.
