A heated discussion lately spread widely across online platforms, following a user posed the question to women: would you rather be lost in the woods with a man or a bear? Similar to the most engaging hypothetical scenarios, it revealed wildly different worldviews and life encounters, highlighted chasms among genders, and could easily to induce a deep personal dilemma if you thought on it for too long. There was also the almost inevitable coda in which some males came online to tell females how foolish they had been to select the animal and went on to limn the punishments they merited for that choice. This at minimum allowed the women who had been hesitating about their decision to make it with a new confidence.
Dramatising the Setup
The Bear-Cooking Tale skillfully dramatises this nifty small premise. This six-episode drama is based on Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s 2018 novel of the same name (rendered two years later for English readers). It follows the tribulations of a clergyman (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his family when they arrive to start a new ministry in Kengis, a remote village in Sweden’s north, during the mid-19th century. Within a community lacking many joys, not one of the inhabitants especially appreciate his strict approach to alcohol and revelry, yet it is his protection of the poor – particularly the native Sami population, from among whom comes the pastor’s foster child Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in societal fairness and equality that places him on a collision course with the Kengis local authorities.
The Antagonists
Quickly collaborating opposing him include the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the intimidating mill owner the matron Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed initially firing a newly injured worker with minimal compensation while he is still gibbering upon seeing of his pulped hand, and all others who benefit from a populace who can be bought for a few bottles of liquor sold by the creepy shopkeeper the merchant Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, to be fair, Lindmark’s eeriness pales once travelling artist Beronius arrives on the scene (Simon J Berger, delivering an acting turn of exceptional discomfiting power). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – only a little more than caricatures, they are at least effective ones.
Plot Progression
With the seeds of conflict planted, it is time to proceed with the storyline. The servant employed by the doctor, Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), accordingly goes missing in the forest. Indications of her escape and animal scratches on a tree get discovered yet she remains completely absent. Gossip and fears of a man/maid-eating beast roaming the woods spread, yet the clergyman has another theory which he and his ward embark to prove.
An Odd Beast
This Bear Drama is a slightly peculiar show. It conjures a fine sense of the bleakness that lets distrust and bias and dark myths flourish based on local folklore that animals can be controlled or inhabited by the souls of humans. And it doesn’t idealising the tough existence experienced by the villagers, in which brutality, be it from the wild or mankind, always looms on the edges, waiting to erupt. Yet the personas rarely become more than ciphers – or perhaps, while the conflicts between justice and vengeance, logic and faith, good and wickedness intensify, emblematic figures within a moral tale – which stops the whole thing truly coming to life.
Stylistic Shifts
And then, exist numerous tonally jarring moments in which the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and discern the maid’s destiny turns nearly laughable. He positions himself observing shattered containers and strands of fur in hay barns like a combined the Belgian detective and Sherlock Holmes – with Jussi a rather hapless Hastings-cum-Watson (none of whom had to lick a blend of blood spatter and the boss’s spit to agree that, yes, it was clearly dried blood on the site), before announcing his latest deduction and extracting a corpse from a bog.
Clashing Agendas
The village elite are determined proving that the maid was killed by an animal, perhaps to preserve the calm, or possibly to protect a fellow elite. The pastor is bent on establishing the opposite, and the proof so quickly stacks up in his favour that again the drama’s plausibility and the viewer’s patience get strained. At its best, the series evokes memories of the TV version a few years ago of the author’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the competing allures and fears offered by rational thought and religion. At its worst, it’s more like Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Nevertheless, it does seem to provide the response to that debated question: “Females, choose the animal.”
To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ now.
