A intense discussion recently spread widely on social media, following a user asked a query to women: which would you prefer be lost in a forest alongside a male or a bear? Like all the best hypothetical scenarios, it exposed wildly different worldviews and experiences, illuminated divides between the sexes, and was likely to induce a deep personal dilemma for anyone pondering about it for too long. There was also the almost inevitable coda in which men of a certain stripe came online to inform women how foolish they were for choosing the animal and proceeded to limn the punishments they merited for it. This at least allowed those females who were uncertain over their choice to make it with a new confidence.
Dramatising the Setup
The Bear-Cooking Tale skillfully dramatises this nifty small premise. The six-part series is adapted from Scandinavian writer Mikael Niemi’s 2018 novel of the same name (rendered two years later for an English audience). It follows the struggles of a pastor (the lead actor) and his family when they arrive to begin a fresh religious post within Kengis, a remote settlement in Sweden’s north, in 1852. In a place lacking many joys, not one of the locals especially appreciate his strict approach to drinking and revelry, yet it is his protection of impoverished people – particularly the native Sami population, from among whom hails the preacher’s adopted son Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his conviction in social justice and equal rights that places him on a collision course against the Kengis powers that be.
The Antagonists
Soon in cahoots opposing him are the lawman Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating mill owner Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen initially dismissing a newly injured laborer with minimal compensation while he is still gibbering at the sight his crushed hand, and anyone else who profit from a populace who can be bought for a few bottles of liquor provided by the unsettling store owner the merchant Lindmark (the actor). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness pales when travelling artist the artist Beronius appears in the story (Simon J Berger, providing an acting turn of exceptional discomfiting power). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – only a little more being stereotypes, they are at least potent archetypes.
Narrative Development
With the seeds of tension planted, the moment arrives to proceed with the storyline. The servant employed by the doctor, the character Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), duly goes missing in the forest. Signs of her flight and animal scratches on a tree are found but she is completely absent. Gossip and anxieties of a man/maid-eating bear prowling the woodland circulate, but the pastor has another theory that he and Jussi embark to verify.
An Odd Beast
To Cook a Bear is a slightly odd beast. It creates a strong impression of the desolation that allows distrust and bias and dark myths flourish from the native legend that animals can be controlled or possessed by the souls of men. And it doesn’t idealising the tough existence led by the residents, where violence, be it from the wild or people, lurks constantly on the edges, poised to explode. Yet the personas rarely become more than ciphers – or maybe, as the struggles between justice and revenge, logic and religion, good and evil intensify, emblematic figures in a fable – which stops the entire production truly becoming immersive.
Tonal Inconsistencies
And then, there are the many tonally jarring instances where the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and determine Hilda’s fate becomes almost risible. He positions himself observing broken milk pots and clumps of hair in hay barns as a fusion of 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 indeed, it was definitely dried 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, perhaps to protect the calm, perhaps to protect one of their own. The pastor is bent on proving otherwise, and the proof so quickly accumulates in his favour that once more the show’s credibility and audience tolerance are tested. In its finest moments, the series is reminiscent of the TV version a few years ago of Sarah Perry’s The Essex Serpent, with its evocation of the competing allures and fears presented by science and religion. At its worst, it resembles a bear-themed police procedural. Still, it appears to offer the answer to that debated question: “Females, choose the animal.”
To Cook a Bear is on Disney+ now.
