A heated debate recently went viral across online platforms, following a user asked the question to women: would you rather find yourself stranded in a forest with a man or a bear? Similar to the most engaging thought experiments, it revealed wildly different perspectives and life encounters, highlighted divides between the sexes, and could easily cause a deep personal dilemma if you thought about it extensively. There was also the almost inevitable follow-up where some males came online to inform females how foolish they had been to select the bear and proceeded 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.
Portraying the Setup
To Cook a Bear skillfully dramatises this clever small premise. The six-part series is adapted from Scandinavian writer Mikael Niemi’s 2018 novel with the identical title (rendered two years later for English readers). It traces the struggles of a pastor (the lead actor) and his household when they arrive to start a new ministry within Kengis, a remote village in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. Within a community lacking many joys, not one of the inhabitants especially warm to his puritanical stance on drinking and dancing, yet it is his defense of impoverished people – especially the indigenous Sami, from among whom hails the preacher’s foster child Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his conviction in social justice and equal rights that places him in direct opposition against the Kengis powers that be.
The Opposing Forces
Quickly collaborating opposing him include the lawman the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the fearsome factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed initially firing a newly injured worker with minimal compensation as he remains babbling upon seeing his crushed hand, and all others who profit from a populace easily swayed with some containers of the whisky provided by the unsettling shopkeeper Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness pales once itinerant painter Beronius arrives on the scene (the performer, delivering a performance of exceptional discomfiting power). While they remain – like the pastor himself – just slightly beyond than caricatures, they are at least potent archetypes.
Plot Progression
Once the foundations of conflict sown, the moment arrives to get down to narrative business. The maid from the doctor’s house, the character Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), duly goes missing from the woods. Signs of her flight and animal scratches on a tree are found but she is nowhere to be seen. Rumours and fears regarding a human-devouring beast prowling 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 somewhat peculiar show. It conjures a strong impression of the desolation that allows distrust and bias and dark myths flourish from the native legend that bears might be dominated or inhabited by the spirits of men. It avoids romanticise the tough existence led by the residents, where violence, be it from the wild or mankind, always looms on the edges, waiting to erupt. But the characters rarely become beyond symbols – or perhaps, as the struggles between justice and revenge, rationality and faith, good and wickedness escalate, representative characters within a moral tale – which stops the entire production truly coming to life.
Stylistic Shifts
Additionally, there are numerous tonally jarring instances in which the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and discern the maid’s destiny turns almost risible. He positions himself observing shattered containers and clumps of hair in hay barns as a fusion of Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (none of whom were required to lick a blend of blood droplets and the boss’s spit to agree that, yes, it was definitely coagulated blood at the crime scene), before announcing his newest conclusion and pulling a body from a bog.
Clashing Agendas
The local leaders are determined proving that Hilda met her end by a bear, maybe to protect the calm, perhaps to protect one of their own. The clergyman is intent on proving the opposite, and the evidence so quickly stacks up in his favour that again the drama’s plausibility and audience tolerance are tested. At its best, To Cook a Bear is reminiscent of the TV version a few years ago of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the competing allures and terrors presented by rational thought and religion. At its worst, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Nevertheless, it does seem to offer the response to that debated question: “Ladies, take the bear.”
The series streams on Disney+ now.
