An intense discussion recently went viral across online platforms, after a user posed the question to women: which would you prefer find yourself stranded in a forest alongside a male or a bear? Similar to the most engaging hypothetical scenarios, it revealed wildly different perspectives and life encounters, highlighted chasms among genders, and was likely cause a deep personal dilemma for anyone pondering on it extensively. There was also the almost inevitable coda where some males took to the internet to inform women how foolish they were to select the animal and went on to limn the consequences they merited for that choice. This at minimum allowed those females who were uncertain over their choice to decide with a new confidence.
Dramatising the Setup
The Bear-Cooking Tale effectively brings to life this clever small premise. The six-part drama is based on Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s 2018 novel with the identical title (translated in 2020 for English readers). It traces the struggles of a clergyman (the lead actor) and his family as they come to start a new ministry in Kengis, an isolated village in northern Sweden, in 1852. In a place lacking many joys, none of the locals particularly warm to his strict approach to alcohol and dancing, yet it is his protection of the poor – especially the native Sami population, from which comes the preacher’s foster child Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in societal fairness and equal rights that sets him in direct opposition against the Kengis powers that be.
The Antagonists
Soon in cahoots against him include the lawman the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the fearsome mill owner Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed early on firing a newly injured laborer with minimal compensation while he is still gibbering upon seeing his crushed hand, and all others who benefit from a community who can be bought with some containers of the whisky provided by the unsettling shopkeeper Lindmark (the actor). However, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes once itinerant painter Beronius appears in the story (the performer, delivering a performance of rare unsettling intensity). If they are – like the pastor himself – just slightly beyond than caricatures, they are at least effective ones.
Narrative Development
With the seeds of conflict sown, it is time to get down to narrative business. The servant from the doctor’s house, Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), duly vanishes in the forest. Indications of her escape and animal scratches on a tree get discovered yet she remains nowhere to be seen. Gossip and fears regarding a human-devouring bear prowling the woods spread, yet the clergyman has another theory which he and his ward set out to verify.
An Odd Beast
To Cook a Bear is a slightly odd beast. It conjures a fine sense of the desolation that allows suspicion and prejudice and dark myths flourish based on local folklore that bears can be controlled or possessed by the spirits of humans. And it doesn’t idealising the hardscrabble life experienced by the residents, where violence, whether that of the wild or people, lurks constantly on the edges, poised to explode. But the characters seldom evolve more than ciphers – or maybe, as the struggles between justice and vengeance, logic and faith, virtue and evil intensify, representative characters within a moral tale – preventing the whole thing truly becoming immersive.
Tonal Inconsistencies
Additionally, exist numerous stylistically clashing instances in which the clergyman’s skill to discover clues and discern the maid’s destiny becomes almost risible. He stands observing shattered containers and strands of fur in hay barns like a combined Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (neither of whom had to lick a blend of blood droplets and saliva from his superior to confirm that, yes, it was definitely dried blood at the crime scene), before announcing his latest deduction and extracting a corpse out of a swamp.
Clashing Agendas
The village elite are determined proving that the maid met her end by an animal, perhaps to preserve the peace, or possibly to shield a fellow elite. The pastor is bent on proving otherwise, and the evidence so rapidly stacks up supporting his view that again the drama’s plausibility and audience tolerance get strained. At its best, the series evokes memories of the adaptation a few years ago of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the competing allures and fears presented by rational thought and belief. At its worst, it’s more like a bear-themed police procedural. Nevertheless, it does seem to provide the response to the earlier query: “Females, choose the animal.”
The series is on Disney+ now.
