An heated debate lately spread widely across online platforms, after a user posed a query for females: would you rather be lost in a forest with a man or with a bear? Similar to the most engaging thought experiments, it exposed vastly opposing worldviews and experiences, highlighted chasms between the sexes, and could easily to induce a deep personal dilemma for anyone pondering about it extensively. Additionally, there came the predictable coda where some males came online to inform women how stupid they had been to select the animal and proceeded to describe the punishments they deserved for that choice. This at least allowed the women who were uncertain over their choice to make it with renewed assurance.
Dramatising the Setup
The Bear-Cooking Tale effectively dramatises this clever small premise. This six-episode series is adapted from Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s 2018 book with the identical title (rendered two years later for an English audience). It follows the tribulations of a clergyman (the lead actor) and his household when they arrive to start a new ministry within Kengis, an isolated settlement in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. In a place lacking many joys, not one of the inhabitants particularly warm to his strict approach to drinking and dancing, but it is his protection of the poor – particularly the indigenous Sami, from which hails the pastor’s adopted son the youth 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 Opposing Forces
Quickly collaborating opposing him are the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the intimidating mill owner the matron Sjödahl (the actress), observed early on dismissing a newly injured worker with a month’s pay as he remains babbling at the sight his crushed hand, and all others who benefit from a populace easily swayed for a few bottles of liquor provided by the creepy store owner the merchant Lindmark (the actor). However, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes when travelling artist Beronius appears on the scene (the performer, delivering a performance of rare discomfiting power). If they are – like the pastor himself – only a little more being stereotypes, they are at least effective ones.
Plot Progression
With the seeds of tension sown, it is time to get down to narrative business. The maid employed by the doctor, the character Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), duly goes missing from the woods. Indications of her escape and bear markings on a tree get discovered but she is nowhere to be seen. Rumours and fears regarding a human-devouring beast prowling the woodland circulate, yet the clergyman holds a different view which he and his ward embark to verify.
A Strange Creation
To Cook a Bear is a slightly odd beast. It creates a fine sense of the desolation that lets suspicion and prejudice and grim legends flourish from the native legend that bears can be controlled or possessed by the souls of humans. It avoids idealising the hardscrabble life experienced by the villagers, where violence, whether that of the wild or mankind, always looms on the edges, poised to explode. But the characters seldom evolve more than ciphers – or maybe, while the conflicts between justice and vengeance, logic and faith, good and wickedness escalate, representative characters within a moral tale – preventing the entire production truly becoming immersive.
Stylistic Shifts
Additionally, exist numerous stylistically clashing moments where the clergyman’s skill to discover clues and determine the maid’s destiny becomes almost risible. He positions himself observing broken milk pots and strands of fur within storage sheds as a fusion of the Belgian detective the English sleuth – alongside Jussi a rather hapless Hastings-cum-Watson (none of whom were required to lick a mixture of blood droplets and the boss’s spit to agree that indeed, it was clearly coagulated blood on the site), prior to declaring his latest deduction and extracting a corpse out of a swamp.
Clashing Agendas
The local leaders are determined proving that the maid was killed by an animal, maybe to preserve the calm, or possibly to shield a fellow elite. The clergyman is bent on establishing otherwise, and the evidence so quickly accumulates in his favour that again the drama’s plausibility and the viewer’s patience get strained. In its finest moments, the series is reminiscent of the adaptation some years back of the author’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the opposing attractions and fears presented by rational thought and belief. At its worst, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Nevertheless, it appears to provide the response to the earlier query: “Females, choose the animal.”
The series streams on Disney+ now.
