An heated debate recently went viral on social media, following someone asked the question to women: would you rather find yourself stranded in the woods alongside a male or with a bear? Similar to the best hypothetical scenarios, it revealed vastly opposing worldviews and experiences, highlighted divides among genders, and could easily cause a deep personal dilemma for anyone pondering about it for too long. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable follow-up in which men of a certain stripe came online to inform women how stupid they had been for choosing the bear and proceeded to limn the punishments they merited for that choice. This at minimum enabled the women who had been hesitating about their decision to make it with renewed assurance.
Dramatising the Setup
The Bear-Cooking Tale effectively dramatises this nifty little setup. This six-episode drama is adapted from Scandinavian writer Mikael Niemi’s 2018 novel of the same name (rendered in 2020 for an English audience). It traces the struggles of a pastor (the lead actor) and his family when they arrive to begin a fresh religious post in Kengis, an isolated settlement in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. Within a community with few pleasures, not one of the inhabitants especially warm to his strict approach to drinking and revelry, yet it is his defense of impoverished people – particularly the indigenous Sami, from among whom hails the preacher’s adopted son Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his belief in social justice and equality that sets him on a collision course against the Kengis powers that be.
The Antagonists
Soon in cahoots opposing him include the lawman the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (the actress), observed early on firing a newly injured laborer with a month’s pay as he remains babbling upon seeing his crushed hand, and all others who benefit from a populace who can be bought with some containers of the whisky provided by the unsettling shopkeeper the merchant Lindmark (the actor). However, to be fair, Lindmark’s creepiness pales once itinerant painter Beronius arrives on the scene (the performer, providing a performance of rare unsettling intensity). If they are – like the pastor himself – just slightly beyond than caricatures, they are at least potent archetypes.
Plot Progression
Once the foundations of conflict sown, it is time to get down with the storyline. The servant from the doctor’s house, Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), accordingly vanishes in the forest. Indications of her flight and animal scratches on a tree get discovered but she is nowhere to be seen. Rumours and fears of a man/maid-eating beast prowling the woods spread, yet the clergyman has another theory that he and Jussi set out to verify.
An Odd Beast
To Cook a Bear is a slightly peculiar show. It creates a strong impression of the desolation that lets distrust and prejudice and dark myths flourish based on local folklore that bears might be dominated or possessed by the spirits of men. It avoids idealising the tough existence led by the residents, where violence, be it from the wild or mankind, lurks constantly at the periphery, waiting to erupt. Yet the personas rarely become beyond symbols – or maybe, while the conflicts amid fairness and revenge, rationality and faith, good and evil escalate, representative characters in a fable – which stops the entire production fully coming to life.
Tonal Inconsistencies
Additionally, exist numerous tonally jarring moments in which the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and discern Hilda’s fate turns almost risible. He stands observing shattered containers and clumps of hair in hay barns as a fusion of the Belgian detective and Sherlock Holmes – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (neither of whom were required to taste a blend of blood spatter and the boss’s spit to agree that, yes, it was definitely dried blood on the site), prior to declaring his latest deduction and extracting a body from a bog.
Opposing Goals
The village elite are determined demonstrating that the maid was killed by an animal, perhaps to protect the calm, perhaps to protect one of their own. The clergyman is bent on proving the opposite, and the evidence so rapidly accumulates in his favour that again the show’s credibility and the viewer’s patience get strained. In its finest moments, the series is reminiscent of the TV version a few years ago of the author’s The Essex Serpent, with its evocation of the opposing allures and terrors offered by science and belief. In its low points, it’s more like a bear-themed police procedural. Still, it appears to offer the response to the earlier query: “Females, choose the animal.”
To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ currently.
