An heated discussion lately spread widely on social media, after a user posed the question to women: would you rather find yourself stranded in a forest alongside a male or with a bear? Similar to the best thought experiments, it exposed vastly opposing perspectives and experiences, highlighted divides between the sexes, and was likely cause an existential crisis if you thought on it extensively. There was also the almost inevitable coda in which men of a certain stripe came online to inform women how foolish they were for choosing the animal and went on to limn the punishments they deserved for that choice. This at least allowed the women who were uncertain about their decision to decide with a new confidence.
Dramatising the Scenario
To Cook a Bear skillfully dramatises this clever small premise. This six-episode drama is based from Scandinavian writer Mikael Niemi’s 2018 novel with the identical title (translated two years later for an English audience). It traces the struggles of a pastor (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his family as they come to begin a new ministry within Kengis, an isolated settlement in northern Sweden, in 1852. In a place lacking many joys, not one of the locals particularly appreciate his strict approach to drinking and revelry, but it is his defense of impoverished people – especially the indigenous Sami, from which comes the preacher’s adopted son the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his conviction in social justice and equality that sets him on a collision course against the Kengis powers that be.
The Antagonists
Soon collaborating opposing him include the lawman the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the fearsome mill owner the matron Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen initially dismissing a recently mangled worker with a month’s pay as he remains babbling upon seeing his crushed hand, and all others who profit from a community easily swayed with some containers of the whisky provided by the unsettling store owner Lindmark (the actor). However, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes when itinerant painter Beronius arrives on the scene (Simon J Berger, delivering a performance of rare discomfiting power). While they remain – like the pastor himself – just slightly beyond than caricatures, they still serve as effective ones.
Plot Progression
With the seeds of conflict planted, it is time to proceed with the storyline. The maid employed by the doctor, the character Hilda (the actress), duly vanishes from the woods. Indications of her escape and animal scratches on a tree are found but she is completely absent. Rumours and fears regarding a human-devouring bear roaming the woodland circulate, yet the clergyman holds a different view which he and his ward embark to verify.
A Strange Creation
To Cook a Bear is a somewhat peculiar show. It conjures a fine sense of the desolation that allows suspicion and bias and grim legends flourish from the native legend that animals can be controlled or possessed by the souls of men. And it doesn’t romanticise the hardscrabble life led by the residents, where brutality, whether that of nature or people, lurks constantly on the edges, waiting to erupt. But the characters rarely become more than ciphers – or perhaps, while the conflicts between justice and vengeance, logic and religion, virtue and wickedness intensify, representative characters within a moral tale – preventing the entire production truly coming to life.
Stylistic Shifts
Additionally, there are the many tonally jarring instances in which the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and discern Hilda’s fate turns almost risible. He positions himself looking at shattered containers and strands of fur within storage sheds like a combined the Belgian detective the English sleuth – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (none of whom had to lick a blend of blood droplets and the boss’s spit to confirm that indeed, it was clearly dried blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and extracting a body out of a swamp.
Opposing Goals
The village elite are bent on demonstrating that Hilda met her end by a bear, maybe to preserve the peace, perhaps to protect a fellow elite. The clergyman is intent on establishing otherwise, and the evidence so quickly accumulates in his favour that again the drama’s plausibility and audience tolerance get strained. At its best, the series evokes memories of the adaptation a few years ago of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the competing attractions and fears offered by rational thought and belief. In its low points, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Nevertheless, it does seem to provide the response to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”
The series streams on Disney+ currently.