An heated discussion lately went viral on social media, after someone asked the question for females: would you rather find yourself stranded in a forest with a man or with a bear? Like all the best thought experiments, it revealed vastly opposing worldviews and life encounters, highlighted divides between the sexes, and could easily to induce a deep personal dilemma if you thought about it for too long. There was also the almost inevitable coda in which men of a certain stripe came online to tell women how foolish they had been for choosing the animal and proceeded to limn the punishments they merited for that choice. This at least enabled the women who were uncertain over their choice to make it with renewed assurance.
Dramatising the Scenario
The Bear-Cooking Tale skillfully dramatises this nifty little setup. This six-episode drama is based on Scandinavian writer Mikael Niemi’s 2018 novel with the identical title (translated two years later for an English audience). It follows the struggles of a pastor (the lead actor) and his household as they come to begin a new ministry in Kengis, a remote settlement in Sweden’s north, during the mid-19th century. In a place with few pleasures, none of the inhabitants especially appreciate his puritanical stance on drinking and revelry, but it is his defense of impoverished people – especially the native Sami population, from which hails the pastor’s foster child Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in social justice and equal rights that places him in direct opposition against the Kengis local authorities.
The Antagonists
Soon collaborating against him include the lawman the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (the actress), observed initially firing a newly injured laborer with a month’s pay while he is still gibbering at the sight his crushed hand, and anyone else who profit from a populace easily swayed for a few bottles of liquor provided by the creepy shopkeeper Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). However, to be fair, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes once travelling artist Beronius appears on the scene (Simon J Berger, providing an acting turn of rare discomfiting power). While they remain – like the pastor himself – only a little more 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 maid from the doctor’s house, Hilda (the actress), accordingly vanishes in the forest. Indications of her flight and animal scratches on a tree are found yet she remains completely absent. Gossip and fears regarding a human-devouring beast prowling the woods circulate, yet the clergyman has another theory which he and his ward set out to verify.
An Odd Beast
This Bear Drama is a somewhat odd beast. It creates a fine sense of the bleakness that allows suspicion and bias and grim legends thrive from the native legend that animals can be controlled or possessed by the souls of men. It avoids romanticise the hardscrabble life led by the villagers, in which violence, be it from the wild or mankind, lurks constantly on the edges, waiting to erupt. But the characters seldom evolve beyond symbols – or maybe, as the struggles between justice and revenge, logic and religion, virtue and evil intensify, emblematic figures in a fable – which stops the whole thing fully coming to life.
Tonal Inconsistencies
Additionally, exist numerous stylistically clashing moments where the pastor’s ability to discover clues and discern Hilda’s fate turns almost risible. He positions himself observing broken milk pots and strands of fur within storage sheds like a combined Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (neither of whom had to lick a blend of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to agree that, yes, it was definitely dried blood on the site), before announcing his latest deduction and extracting a corpse from a bog.
Clashing Agendas
The local leaders are determined demonstrating that Hilda was killed by a bear, perhaps to protect the peace, perhaps to shield one of their own. The pastor is intent on establishing otherwise, and the evidence so quickly accumulates in his favour that once more the drama’s plausibility and the viewer’s patience are tested. At its best, the series is reminiscent of the adaptation a few years ago of Sarah Perry’s The Essex Serpent, with its evocation of the competing allures and terrors presented by rational thought and belief. In its low points, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it does seem to provide the response to that debated question: “Females, choose the animal.”
To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ currently.
