An intense debate lately went viral on social media, following a user asked a query for females: which would you prefer be lost in a forest with a man or with a bear? Like all the best thought experiments, it exposed wildly different perspectives and life encounters, illuminated divides among genders, and could easily cause an existential crisis for anyone pondering about it for too long. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable coda where men of a certain stripe came online to inform females how stupid they had been to select the bear and proceeded to describe the punishments they deserved for it. This at least allowed the women who were uncertain over their choice to make it with renewed assurance.
Portraying the Scenario
To Cook a Bear effectively brings to life this nifty small premise. The six-part series is based from Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s 2018 book of the same name (translated in 2020 for English readers). It traces the tribulations of a pastor (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his household as they come to begin a fresh religious post in Kengis, an isolated settlement in northern Sweden, in 1852. In a place with few pleasures, none of the locals especially appreciate his puritanical stance on alcohol and dancing, yet it is his protection of impoverished people – particularly the indigenous Sami, from among whom hails the preacher’s foster child the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his conviction in societal fairness and equality that sets him on a collision course with the Kengis powers that be.
The Antagonists
Quickly collaborating against him are the lawman Brahe (the performer), the fearsome factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed early on dismissing a recently mangled laborer with minimal compensation as he remains gibbering upon seeing his crushed hand, and all others who benefit from a community easily swayed with some containers of the whisky provided by the unsettling shopkeeper the merchant Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness pales when travelling artist Beronius arrives on the scene (the performer, providing an acting turn of rare discomfiting power). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond than caricatures, they still serve as potent archetypes.
Narrative Development
With the seeds of conflict sown, the moment arrives to get down with the storyline. The maid employed by the doctor, the character Hilda (the actress), duly vanishes in the forest. Indications of her flight and animal scratches upon a trunk are found yet she remains completely absent. Rumours and fears regarding a human-devouring bear prowling the woodland circulate, yet the clergyman has another theory which he and his ward set out to verify.
An Odd Beast
This Bear Drama is a somewhat peculiar show. It conjures a strong impression of the bleakness that allows suspicion and bias and dark myths thrive from the native legend that animals can be controlled or inhabited by the spirits of humans. It avoids romanticise the tough existence led by the residents, where brutality, whether that of the wild or mankind, lurks constantly on the edges, poised to explode. But the characters seldom evolve more than ciphers – or maybe, while the conflicts amid fairness and vengeance, rationality and religion, virtue and wickedness intensify, representative characters within a moral tale – preventing the whole thing truly becoming immersive.
Tonal Inconsistencies
Additionally, exist numerous stylistically clashing moments where the clergyman’s skill to discover clues and discern Hilda’s fate turns almost risible. He stands looking at shattered containers and strands of fur in hay barns as a fusion of Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – alongside Jussi a rather hapless assistant figure (none of whom were required to taste a mixture of blood droplets and the boss’s spit to agree that indeed, it was definitely coagulated blood on the site), before announcing his latest deduction and extracting a corpse out of a swamp.
Clashing Agendas
The village elite are bent on demonstrating that the maid was killed by a bear, maybe to preserve the peace, perhaps to shield one of their own. The pastor is bent on proving the opposite, and the proof so quickly accumulates in his favour that again the drama’s plausibility and audience tolerance get strained. In its finest moments, To Cook a Bear evokes memories of the adaptation a few years ago of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the competing allures and fears presented by rational thought and belief. At its worst, it’s more like a bear-themed police procedural. Nevertheless, it does seem to offer the answer to that debated question: “Ladies, take the bear.”
To Cook a Bear is on Disney+ currently.
