An intense discussion recently went viral across online platforms, after someone asked the question to women: would you rather find yourself stranded in a forest alongside a male or with a bear? Like all the best thought experiments, it exposed wildly different worldviews and experiences, highlighted divides between the sexes, and was likely to induce a deep personal dilemma if you thought on it extensively. Additionally, there came the predictable follow-up where some males took to the internet to tell women how foolish they had been for choosing the bear and went on to describe the consequences they deserved for that choice. This at least enabled the women who were uncertain about their decision to decide with renewed assurance.
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 of the same name (translated in 2020 for English readers). It traces the tribulations of a pastor (the lead actor) and his household as they come to start a fresh religious post in Kengis, an isolated village in Sweden’s north, in 1852. In a place with few pleasures, none of the locals particularly appreciate his puritanical stance on alcohol and dancing, yet it is his protection of impoverished people – especially the native Sami population, from among whom hails the preacher’s adopted son Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his belief in societal fairness and equal rights that sets him in direct opposition with the Kengis powers that be.
The Opposing Forces
Soon in cahoots opposing him are the sheriff the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the fearsome factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed initially firing a newly injured worker with a month’s pay while he is still gibbering at the sight of his pulped hand, and all others who benefit from a populace easily swayed with some containers of the whisky provided by the unsettling shopkeeper Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, to be fair, Lindmark’s eeriness pales when itinerant painter Beronius appears on the scene (Simon J Berger, delivering an acting turn of exceptional discomfiting power). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond than caricatures, they still serve as effective ones.
Plot Progression
Once the foundations of tension planted, the moment arrives to proceed with the storyline. The maid from the doctor’s house, Hilda (the actress), accordingly vanishes from the woods. Indications of her escape and bear markings upon a trunk are found yet she remains nowhere to be seen. Gossip and fears regarding a human-devouring bear roaming the woodland spread, yet the clergyman has another theory that he and Jussi embark to prove.
An Odd Beast
This Bear Drama is a somewhat odd beast. It conjures a strong impression of the bleakness that allows distrust and prejudice and grim legends flourish based on local folklore that bears can be controlled or inhabited by the souls of men. And it doesn’t idealising the tough existence led by the villagers, in which brutality, be it from the wild or people, always looms on the edges, poised to explode. Yet the personas seldom evolve beyond symbols – or perhaps, as the struggles amid fairness and revenge, rationality and faith, virtue and evil intensify, representative characters in a fable – which stops the entire production fully becoming immersive.
Stylistic Shifts
Additionally, there are numerous tonally jarring moments in which the pastor’s ability to discover clues and determine Hilda’s fate becomes nearly laughable. He stands observing broken milk pots and clumps of hair in hay barns as a fusion of Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – alongside Jussi a rather hapless Hastings-cum-Watson (neither of whom were required to taste a mixture of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to confirm that, yes, it was clearly coagulated blood on the site), before announcing his latest deduction and pulling a body out of a swamp.
Clashing Agendas
The local leaders are bent on demonstrating that Hilda was killed by an animal, maybe to protect the calm, or possibly to protect one of their own. The pastor is intent on establishing otherwise, and the evidence so quickly accumulates in his favour that once more the show’s credibility and audience tolerance are tested. In its finest moments, To Cook a Bear evokes memories of the TV version some years back of the author’s The Essex Serpent, with its evocation of the competing allures and terrors offered by science and religion. At its worst, it’s more like Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Nevertheless, it appears to provide the response to the earlier query: “Females, choose the animal.”
To Cook a Bear is on Disney+ now.
