An heated discussion lately spread widely across online platforms, following someone asked a query to women: would you rather be lost in the woods alongside a male or with a bear? Similar to the most engaging thought experiments, it exposed wildly different perspectives and life encounters, highlighted divides among genders, and could easily cause an existential crisis if you thought on it extensively. Additionally, there came the predictable coda where men of a certain stripe took to the internet to inform women how stupid they were for choosing the bear and went on to describe the punishments they deserved for that choice. This at least allowed those females who had been hesitating over their choice to decide with renewed assurance.
Dramatising the Setup
The Bear-Cooking Tale skillfully brings to life this nifty small premise. The six-part series is based from Scandinavian writer the novelist’s 2018 book of the same name (rendered in 2020 for an English audience). It traces the tribulations of a clergyman (the lead actor) and his family as they come to start a new ministry within Kengis, an isolated village in northern Sweden, in 1852. Within a community lacking many joys, none of the inhabitants particularly warm to his puritanical stance on drinking and dancing, yet it is his protection of impoverished people – particularly the native Sami population, from among whom hails the preacher’s foster child the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in social justice and equality that sets him in direct opposition with the Kengis powers that be.
The Antagonists
Quickly collaborating against him include the lawman Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the fearsome mill owner the matron Sjödahl (the actress), observed early on firing a recently mangled worker with a month’s pay while he is still babbling upon seeing his crushed hand, and all others who profit from a community easily swayed for a few bottles of the whisky sold by the unsettling shopkeeper the merchant Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). However, to be fair, Lindmark’s creepiness pales once travelling artist the 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 being stereotypes, they are at least potent archetypes.
Plot Progression
Once the foundations of tension sown, the moment arrives to proceed with the storyline. The servant from the doctor’s house, the character Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), accordingly vanishes from the woods. Signs of her flight and animal scratches upon a trunk are found but she is completely absent. Rumours and anxieties regarding a human-devouring bear prowling the woods circulate, yet the clergyman has another theory which he and his ward embark to prove.
A Strange Creation
To Cook a Bear is a slightly odd beast. It conjures a strong impression of the desolation that lets suspicion and bias and dark myths flourish from the native legend that bears can be controlled or inhabited by the souls of humans. It avoids romanticise the tough existence experienced by the residents, where violence, be it from the wild or people, lurks constantly at the periphery, 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 in a fable – which stops the entire production truly coming to life.
Tonal Inconsistencies
Additionally, exist numerous tonally jarring moments where the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and discern the maid’s destiny turns almost risible. He stands observing broken milk pots and clumps of hair within storage sheds as a fusion of Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (none of whom were required to taste a mixture of blood droplets and the boss’s spit to confirm that indeed, it was clearly dried blood on the site), prior to declaring his latest deduction and extracting a body from a bog.
Clashing Agendas
The local leaders are determined proving that Hilda was killed by a bear, perhaps to preserve the calm, or possibly to protect one of their own. The pastor is intent on establishing otherwise, and the evidence so quickly stacks up supporting his view that again the drama’s plausibility and the viewer’s patience get strained. At its best, the series is reminiscent of the TV version some years back of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the competing attractions and terrors offered by rational thought and religion. At its worst, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Nevertheless, it appears to offer the answer to that debated question: “Ladies, take the bear.”
The series streams on Disney+ currently.
