A heated discussion lately went viral on social media, after someone asked a query to women: which would you prefer find yourself stranded in the woods alongside a male or a bear? Similar to the best hypothetical scenarios, it revealed wildly different perspectives and experiences, highlighted chasms between the sexes, and was likely to induce an existential crisis if you thought about it for too long. Additionally, there came the predictable follow-up in which some males came online to tell women how foolish they were for choosing the animal and proceeded to describe the consequences they deserved for that choice. This at minimum allowed those females who were uncertain about their decision to decide with a new confidence.
Dramatising the Setup
The Bear-Cooking Tale skillfully brings to life this nifty little setup. This six-episode drama is based on Scandinavian writer Mikael Niemi’s 2018 book with the identical title (rendered two years later for English readers). It traces the struggles of a pastor (the lead actor) and his family when they arrive to begin a new ministry in Kengis, a remote settlement in Sweden’s north, in 1852. Within a community lacking many joys, none of the locals particularly warm to his puritanical stance on alcohol and revelry, yet it is his defense of impoverished people – particularly the indigenous Sami, from which hails the preacher’s foster child the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his conviction in societal fairness and equality that places him on a collision course against the Kengis powers that be.
The Antagonists
Soon collaborating against him include the lawman the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the fearsome mill owner the matron Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed initially dismissing a newly injured worker with a month’s pay while he is still gibbering at the sight his crushed hand, and all others who profit from a populace easily swayed with some containers of liquor provided by the unsettling shopkeeper the merchant Lindmark (the actor). However, to be fair, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes when travelling artist the artist Beronius appears on the scene (the performer, delivering a performance of exceptional unsettling intensity). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – only a little more being stereotypes, they still serve as potent archetypes.
Plot Progression
With the seeds of tension sown, the moment arrives to get down with the storyline. The servant from the doctor’s house, Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), accordingly goes missing from the woods. Indications of her escape and bear markings upon a trunk get discovered but she is nowhere to be seen. Rumours and fears regarding a human-devouring bear roaming the woodland circulate, but the pastor has another theory which he and his ward embark to prove.
An Odd Beast
This Bear Drama is a somewhat peculiar show. It conjures a fine sense of the bleakness that lets distrust and prejudice and grim legends thrive from the native legend that bears might be dominated or inhabited by the souls of humans. It avoids idealising the tough existence experienced by the residents, in which brutality, be it from the wild or people, lurks constantly on the edges, poised to explode. Yet the personas rarely become beyond symbols – or perhaps, while the conflicts amid fairness and revenge, logic and faith, virtue and wickedness intensify, emblematic figures in a fable – preventing the whole thing fully coming to life.
Tonal Inconsistencies
And then, exist the many stylistically clashing instances in which the clergyman’s skill to discover clues and determine Hilda’s fate becomes nearly laughable. He positions himself observing shattered containers and strands of fur within storage sheds as a fusion of Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (neither of whom were required to taste a mixture of blood droplets and saliva from his superior to agree that, yes, it was clearly dried blood on the site), before announcing his newest conclusion and extracting a corpse out of a swamp.
Opposing Goals
The local leaders are bent on demonstrating that the maid was killed by a bear, maybe to preserve the calm, or possibly to shield one of their own. The clergyman is bent on establishing the opposite, and the proof so quickly stacks up in his favour that again the drama’s plausibility and the viewer’s patience are tested. In its finest moments, the series evokes memories of the adaptation some years back of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the competing attractions and fears presented by rational thought and religion. In its low points, it’s more like Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Nevertheless, it does seem to provide the response to the earlier query: “Females, choose the animal.”
To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ currently.
