A heated discussion lately spread widely on social media, after a user posed the question for females: which would you prefer be lost in the woods with a man or with a bear? Like all the most engaging hypothetical scenarios, it revealed vastly opposing perspectives and life encounters, illuminated divides between the sexes, and could easily to induce an existential crisis for anyone pondering on it for too long. Additionally, there came the predictable coda in which some males came online to inform females how foolish they were to select the animal and proceeded to limn the consequences they merited for that choice. This at minimum allowed those females who had been hesitating over their choice to make it with renewed assurance.
Portraying the Setup
The Bear-Cooking Tale effectively dramatises this nifty small premise. This six-episode drama is based on Scandinavian writer Mikael Niemi’s 2018 novel of the same name (translated two years later for an English audience). It follows the tribulations of a clergyman (the lead actor) and his household as they come to start a fresh religious post within Kengis, an isolated village in Sweden’s north, during the mid-19th century. Within a community with few pleasures, none of the inhabitants especially appreciate his puritanical approach to alcohol and dancing, but it is his defense of the poor – particularly the indigenous Sami, from which comes the pastor’s foster child Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his conviction in societal fairness and equal rights that places him in direct opposition against the Kengis powers that be.
The Antagonists
Quickly in cahoots opposing him include the lawman the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (the actress), observed early on dismissing a newly injured worker with a month’s pay as he remains babbling upon seeing of his pulped hand, and all others who benefit from a community easily swayed for a few bottles of liquor sold by the unsettling shopkeeper the merchant Lindmark (the actor). Although, to be fair, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes once itinerant painter Beronius appears on the scene (the performer, providing a performance of rare discomfiting power). If they are – like the pastor himself – just slightly beyond than caricatures, they still serve as potent archetypes.
Plot Progression
With the seeds of tension planted, it is time to proceed to narrative business. The servant from the doctor’s house, the character Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), accordingly vanishes in the forest. Signs of her flight and bear markings upon a trunk get discovered yet she remains completely absent. Gossip and anxieties of a man/maid-eating beast roaming the woods spread, yet the clergyman holds a different view which he and his ward embark to verify.
An Odd Beast
To Cook a Bear is a slightly odd beast. It creates a fine sense of the desolation that lets suspicion and bias and dark myths flourish based on local folklore that animals can be controlled or possessed by the souls of men. And it doesn’t idealising the tough existence led by the residents, in which violence, be it from nature or people, lurks constantly on the edges, poised to explode. Yet the personas rarely become more than ciphers – or perhaps, while the conflicts between justice and revenge, rationality and faith, good and wickedness intensify, representative characters within a moral tale – preventing the whole thing fully becoming immersive.
Stylistic Shifts
And then, there are numerous tonally jarring moments where the pastor’s ability to discover clues and discern the maid’s destiny turns almost risible. He stands observing broken milk pots and clumps of hair within storage sheds as a fusion of the Belgian detective the English sleuth – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (none of whom were required to lick a blend of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to agree that indeed, it was clearly coagulated blood on the site), before announcing his newest conclusion and pulling a body out of a swamp.
Opposing Goals
The village elite are bent on demonstrating that Hilda was killed by a bear, maybe to preserve the calm, perhaps to protect a fellow elite. The pastor is bent on establishing otherwise, and the evidence so rapidly accumulates in his favour that again the show’s credibility and audience tolerance are tested. At its best, the series evokes memories of the TV version a few years ago of Sarah Perry’s The Essex Serpent, through its portrayal of the competing attractions and fears offered by rational thought and belief. In its low points, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Nevertheless, it does seem to offer the answer to that debated question: “Females, choose the animal.”
To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ now.
