An heated discussion recently went viral across online platforms, after a user asked the question to women: would you rather find yourself stranded in a forest with a man or with a bear? Like all the best hypothetical scenarios, it exposed vastly opposing perspectives and experiences, highlighted chasms between the sexes, and could easily cause an existential crisis if you thought about it for too long. Additionally, there came the predictable coda where some males took to the internet to tell women how foolish they were to select the animal and proceeded to describe the punishments they deserved for that choice. This at minimum allowed the women who had been hesitating over their choice to make it with renewed assurance.
Dramatising the Setup
The Bear-Cooking Tale effectively dramatises this clever little setup. The six-part series is adapted on Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s 2018 novel with the identical title (rendered two years later for English readers). It follows the struggles of a clergyman (the lead actor) and his household when they arrive to begin a fresh religious post within Kengis, a remote settlement in northern Sweden, in 1852. In a place lacking many joys, none of the locals particularly appreciate his strict approach to drinking and revelry, yet it is his protection of impoverished people – especially the native Sami population, from among whom hails the pastor’s foster child Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in societal fairness and equality that sets him on a collision course against the Kengis local authorities.
The Opposing Forces
Quickly collaborating against him include the sheriff the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the fearsome factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (the actress), seen early on firing a newly injured worker with minimal compensation as he remains gibbering upon seeing of his pulped hand, and anyone else who benefit from a community easily swayed with some containers of the whisky sold by the unsettling store owner Lindmark (the actor). However, to be fair, Lindmark’s eeriness pales once travelling artist Beronius arrives on the scene (the performer, providing an acting turn of rare unsettling intensity). While they remain – like the pastor himself – only a little more than caricatures, they are at least effective ones.
Plot Progression
Once the foundations of tension sown, it is time to get down with the storyline. The maid employed by the doctor, Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), duly goes missing in the forest. Signs of her flight and bear markings on a tree are found yet she remains completely absent. Rumours and anxieties of a man/maid-eating beast roaming the woods circulate, yet the clergyman holds a different view which he and his ward embark to prove.
An Odd Beast
To Cook a Bear is a slightly odd beast. It conjures a fine sense of the bleakness that allows suspicion and prejudice and dark myths flourish from the native legend that bears might be dominated or inhabited by the spirits of men. It avoids romanticise the tough existence experienced by the residents, where violence, be it from the wild or mankind, lurks constantly at the periphery, waiting to erupt. Yet the personas rarely become beyond symbols – or maybe, as the struggles amid fairness and revenge, rationality and religion, good and wickedness escalate, emblematic figures within a moral tale – which stops the whole thing truly becoming immersive.
Tonal Inconsistencies
Additionally, exist numerous stylistically clashing moments in which the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and determine Hilda’s fate turns nearly laughable. He positions himself looking at shattered containers and strands of fur in hay barns like a combined Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (none of whom were required to lick a mixture of blood droplets and the boss’s spit to agree that indeed, it was clearly dried blood at the crime scene), before announcing his newest conclusion and pulling a body from a bog.
Opposing Goals
The local leaders are determined 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 intent on proving the opposite, and the proof so rapidly accumulates in his favour that once more the show’s credibility and audience tolerance get strained. In its finest moments, the series evokes memories of the TV version a few years ago of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the competing allures and fears presented by rational thought and religion. At its worst, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Nevertheless, it appears to provide the answer to the earlier query: “Females, choose the animal.”
The series is on Disney+ now.
