A intense discussion recently spread widely on social media, after a user posed a query for females: which would you prefer be lost in the woods alongside a male or with a bear? Similar to the best thought experiments, it exposed vastly opposing worldviews and life encounters, highlighted divides among genders, and was likely to induce a deep personal dilemma if you thought on it extensively. There was also the predictable coda where men of a certain stripe took to the internet to inform females how stupid they had been to select the bear and went on to describe the punishments they deserved for it. This at minimum allowed those females who were uncertain over their choice to decide with a new confidence.
Portraying the Scenario
The Bear-Cooking Tale skillfully brings to life this nifty small premise. The six-part series is based from Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s 2018 novel with the identical title (translated two years later for English readers). It follows the tribulations of a clergyman (the lead actor) and his household when they arrive to start a new ministry in Kengis, an isolated village in northern Sweden, in 1852. Within a community lacking many joys, none of the locals particularly warm to his strict stance on alcohol and dancing, yet it is his protection of impoverished people – particularly the native Sami population, from which hails the pastor’s adopted son Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in social justice and equality that places him in direct opposition with the Kengis local authorities.
The Opposing Forces
Soon in cahoots opposing him are the lawman the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the fearsome factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (the actress), seen initially dismissing a recently mangled laborer with minimal compensation 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 provided by the unsettling store owner the merchant Lindmark (the actor). However, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes when travelling artist Beronius appears on the scene (Simon J Berger, providing an acting turn of exceptional unsettling intensity). If they are – similar to the clergyman – only a little more than caricatures, they are at least effective ones.
Narrative Development
Once the foundations of tension planted, the moment arrives to proceed to narrative business. The maid employed by the doctor, the character Hilda (the actress), accordingly vanishes from the woods. Signs of her escape and animal scratches on a tree are found but she is completely absent. Gossip and fears regarding a human-devouring beast roaming the woodland circulate, but the pastor has another theory that he and Jussi set out to prove.
An Odd Beast
This Bear Drama is a slightly peculiar show. It conjures a fine sense of the desolation that allows suspicion and prejudice and grim legends flourish based on local folklore that bears might be dominated or inhabited by the souls of men. And it doesn’t romanticise the hardscrabble life experienced by the villagers, in which brutality, whether that of nature or people, always looms at the periphery, poised to explode. But the characters seldom evolve beyond symbols – or maybe, while the conflicts between justice and revenge, rationality and faith, good and wickedness escalate, representative characters in a fable – which stops the whole thing fully becoming immersive.
Stylistic Shifts
Additionally, there are numerous tonally jarring instances where the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and discern the maid’s destiny becomes almost risible. He positions himself observing broken milk pots and clumps of hair within storage sheds like a combined the Belgian detective and Sherlock Holmes – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (none of whom had to lick a blend of blood droplets and saliva from his superior to confirm that indeed, it was clearly dried blood at the crime scene), before announcing his newest conclusion and extracting a corpse out of a swamp.
Opposing Goals
The local leaders are determined proving that the maid was killed by a bear, perhaps to protect the peace, or possibly to protect one of their own. The clergyman is intent on establishing the opposite, and the evidence so rapidly stacks up supporting his view that once more the drama’s plausibility and the viewer’s patience are tested. At its best, the series evokes memories of the TV version a few years ago of the author’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the opposing attractions and fears presented by rational thought and belief. At its worst, it’s more like a bear-themed police procedural. Still, it does seem to provide the answer to that debated question: “Females, choose the animal.”
To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ currently.
