A intense discussion recently spread widely on social media, following someone asked a query for females: would you rather find yourself stranded in the woods with a man or a bear? Like all the most engaging thought experiments, it exposed wildly different worldviews and experiences, highlighted chasms among genders, and could easily cause a deep personal dilemma for anyone pondering on it extensively. There was also the predictable follow-up where men of a certain stripe took to the internet to inform females how stupid they had been for choosing the bear and went on to limn the punishments they merited for it. This at least enabled the women who were uncertain about their decision to make it with renewed assurance.
Dramatising the Setup
To Cook a Bear skillfully brings to life this clever small premise. The six-part series is adapted on Scandinavian writer Mikael Niemi’s 2018 novel of the same name (rendered in 2020 for English readers). It traces the struggles of a clergyman (the lead actor) and his household as they come to start a fresh religious post in Kengis, a remote village in Sweden’s north, in 1852. In a place lacking many joys, none of the locals especially warm to his strict stance on drinking and dancing, but it is his defense of the poor – especially the native Sami population, from among whom comes the pastor’s foster child Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his conviction in social justice and equal rights that sets him on a collision course with the Kengis local authorities.
The Antagonists
Quickly collaborating opposing him include the lawman Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating mill owner Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen early on dismissing a recently mangled worker with minimal compensation while he is still gibbering upon seeing his crushed hand, and all others who benefit from a populace easily swayed for a few bottles of the whisky provided by the creepy shopkeeper the merchant Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness pales once itinerant painter 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 still serve as effective ones.
Narrative Development
With the seeds of tension sown, the moment arrives to proceed with the storyline. The maid employed by the doctor, Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), duly vanishes from the woods. Signs of her escape and animal scratches upon a trunk are found yet she remains completely absent. Rumours and anxieties regarding a human-devouring beast prowling the woodland circulate, yet the clergyman holds a different view that he and Jussi set out to prove.
A Strange Creation
This Bear Drama is a somewhat peculiar show. It conjures a fine sense of the desolation that allows suspicion and bias and dark myths flourish from the native legend that bears might be dominated or possessed by the souls of humans. It avoids romanticise the tough existence experienced by the villagers, in which brutality, be it from the wild or people, lurks constantly on the edges, poised to explode. Yet the personas rarely become more than ciphers – or perhaps, while the conflicts amid fairness and vengeance, logic and religion, virtue and evil escalate, emblematic figures in a fable – which stops the whole thing fully coming to life.
Stylistic Shifts
And then, exist the many stylistically clashing instances in which the pastor’s ability to discover clues and determine the maid’s destiny becomes almost risible. He stands observing shattered containers and clumps of hair within storage sheds like a combined the Belgian detective the English sleuth – alongside Jussi a rather hapless assistant figure (neither of whom had to lick a mixture of blood spatter and the boss’s spit to confirm that indeed, it was clearly coagulated blood on the site), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and extracting a corpse out of a swamp.
Clashing Agendas
The local leaders are determined demonstrating that Hilda was killed by a bear, maybe to preserve the peace, or possibly to protect a fellow elite. The clergyman is bent on proving otherwise, and the evidence so quickly stacks up supporting his view that again the show’s credibility and the viewer’s patience are tested. At its best, To Cook a Bear is reminiscent of the TV version some years back of Sarah Perry’s The Essex Serpent, through its portrayal of the opposing attractions and terrors offered by rational thought and religion. In its low points, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Nevertheless, it appears to offer the response to that debated question: “Females, choose the animal.”
The series is on Disney+ currently.
