An intense discussion lately went viral on social media, following someone asked the question for females: would you rather be lost in the woods alongside a male or with a bear? Like all the most engaging hypothetical scenarios, it exposed wildly different worldviews and life encounters, highlighted divides between the sexes, and could easily cause a deep personal dilemma if you thought on it extensively. There was also the predictable coda in which some males took to the internet to tell women how stupid they were for choosing the bear and proceeded to describe the punishments they deserved for that choice. This at least enabled those females who were uncertain about their decision to make it with renewed assurance.
Dramatising the Setup
To Cook a Bear effectively brings to life this clever little setup. This six-episode series is adapted from Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s 2018 novel with the identical title (translated in 2020 for an English audience). It follows the tribulations of a pastor (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his family as they come to start a new ministry in Kengis, an isolated settlement in northern Sweden, in 1852. In a place lacking many joys, none of the inhabitants particularly appreciate his puritanical stance on alcohol and revelry, but it is his protection of the poor – especially the indigenous Sami, from among whom hails the pastor’s foster child Jussi (the young actor) – and his conviction in social justice and equality that places him on a collision course with the Kengis local authorities.
The Opposing Forces
Quickly in cahoots against him include the lawman the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the fearsome factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (the actress), seen initially firing a recently mangled laborer with minimal compensation while he is still babbling at the sight of his pulped hand, and anyone else who benefit from a community easily swayed for a few bottles of the whisky provided by the creepy shopkeeper the merchant Lindmark (the actor). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes when travelling artist Beronius appears on the scene (the performer, providing an acting turn of exceptional unsettling intensity). If they are – like the pastor himself – only a little more being stereotypes, they still serve as potent archetypes.
Narrative Development
With the seeds of conflict sown, it is time to get down with the storyline. The maid from the doctor’s house, Hilda (the actress), accordingly goes missing in the forest. Indications of her escape and animal scratches upon a trunk are found but she is nowhere to be seen. Rumours and anxieties of a man/maid-eating bear roaming the woods spread, yet the clergyman has another theory that he and Jussi set out to verify.
An Odd Beast
This Bear Drama is a somewhat odd beast. It conjures a fine sense of the desolation that lets distrust and bias and dark myths flourish based on local folklore that bears can be controlled or possessed by the spirits of men. And it doesn’t idealising the hardscrabble life experienced by the villagers, where violence, whether that of the wild or people, lurks constantly on the edges, waiting to erupt. But the characters seldom evolve beyond symbols – or maybe, while the conflicts between justice and vengeance, logic and religion, virtue and wickedness intensify, representative characters in a fable – preventing the whole thing truly coming to life.
Tonal Inconsistencies
Additionally, exist numerous stylistically clashing moments in which the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and discern Hilda’s fate becomes nearly laughable. He positions himself observing shattered containers and strands of fur in hay barns as a fusion of Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (neither of whom had to taste a blend of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to confirm that, yes, it was definitely coagulated blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and extracting a corpse out of a swamp.
Clashing Agendas
The village elite are bent on demonstrating that the maid was killed by an animal, maybe to preserve the calm, or possibly to protect a fellow elite. The clergyman is bent on establishing the opposite, and the proof so quickly accumulates in his favour that once more the drama’s plausibility and audience tolerance get strained. In its finest moments, To Cook a Bear is reminiscent of the adaptation a few years ago of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the opposing allures and fears offered by science and religion. At its worst, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it appears to offer the answer to that debated question: “Females, choose the animal.”
The series is on Disney+ currently.
