An intense discussion recently spread widely on social media, following a user posed a query to women: would you rather be lost in a forest alongside a male or a bear? Similar to the most engaging thought experiments, it revealed vastly opposing perspectives and experiences, illuminated chasms among genders, and was likely to induce an existential crisis if you thought on it for too long. There was also the almost inevitable coda in which men of a certain stripe took to the internet to inform females how stupid they had been for choosing the animal and went on to limn the punishments they merited for that choice. This at least enabled those females who had been hesitating about their decision to decide with renewed assurance.
Portraying the Setup
To Cook a Bear skillfully brings to life this clever small premise. The six-part drama is based from Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s 2018 novel of the same name (translated in 2020 for an English audience). It traces the struggles of a clergyman (the lead actor) and his household when they arrive to begin a new ministry in Kengis, a remote village in Sweden’s north, in 1852. In a place with few pleasures, none of the locals particularly warm to his strict approach to alcohol and dancing, but it is his defense of the poor – particularly the native Sami population, from which comes the preacher’s foster child the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his belief in societal fairness and equal rights that places him on a collision course with the Kengis powers that be.
The Opposing Forces
Soon collaborating opposing him are the lawman the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the fearsome factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed early on dismissing a recently mangled laborer with a month’s pay while he is still babbling upon seeing his crushed hand, and anyone else who benefit from a populace who can be bought with some containers of the whisky sold by the unsettling shopkeeper Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). However, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes once 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 than caricatures, they are at least effective ones.
Plot Progression
Once the foundations of conflict sown, it is time to get down to narrative business. The maid employed by the doctor, the character Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), duly vanishes from the woods. Indications of her escape and animal scratches upon a trunk get discovered yet she remains nowhere to be seen. Rumours and fears regarding a human-devouring beast prowling the woods spread, yet the clergyman holds a different view which he and his ward embark to prove.
An Odd Beast
To Cook a Bear is a somewhat odd beast. It creates a strong impression of the bleakness that lets suspicion and bias and dark myths flourish from the native legend that animals might be dominated or possessed by the spirits of men. It avoids romanticise the tough existence led by the villagers, where brutality, be it from nature or mankind, always looms on the edges, poised to explode. Yet the personas rarely become more than ciphers – or maybe, while the conflicts between justice and vengeance, logic and religion, virtue and evil escalate, representative characters within a moral tale – preventing the whole thing truly coming to life.
Stylistic Shifts
Additionally, there are the many tonally jarring instances where the pastor’s ability to discover clues and discern the maid’s destiny turns almost risible. He stands observing broken milk pots and strands of fur within storage sheds as a fusion of the Belgian detective and Sherlock Holmes – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (neither of whom were required to lick a mixture of blood droplets and the boss’s spit to agree that, yes, it was clearly dried blood at the crime scene), before announcing his latest deduction and extracting a body out of a swamp.
Opposing Goals
The local leaders are determined demonstrating that Hilda was killed by an animal, perhaps to protect the peace, perhaps to shield a fellow elite. The pastor is intent on establishing otherwise, and the proof so rapidly stacks up in his favour that again the show’s credibility and audience tolerance are tested. At its best, 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 competing allures and terrors offered by rational thought and religion. At its worst, it resembles a bear-themed police procedural. Nevertheless, it does seem to offer the answer to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”
The series streams on Disney+ now.
