A intense discussion lately went viral on social media, following someone posed a query to women: would you rather find yourself stranded in a forest with a man or a bear? Like all the best thought experiments, it revealed vastly opposing worldviews and experiences, illuminated chasms between the sexes, and could easily cause an existential crisis for anyone pondering about it for too long. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable follow-up where some males came online to inform females how stupid they were for choosing the animal and proceeded to limn the consequences they deserved for that choice. This at least allowed those females who were uncertain over their choice to make it with a new confidence.
Dramatising the Setup
To Cook a Bear skillfully brings to life this clever little setup. The six-part series is based on Scandinavian writer the novelist’s 2018 book of the same name (rendered in 2020 for an English audience). It follows the struggles of a pastor (the lead actor) and his family when they arrive to begin a new ministry within Kengis, an isolated village in Sweden’s north, in 1852. Within a community lacking many joys, none of the inhabitants especially warm to his puritanical approach to alcohol and dancing, but it is his defense of the poor – particularly the native Sami population, from among whom comes the preacher’s foster child the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in social justice and equality that sets him in direct opposition against the Kengis local authorities.
The Opposing Forces
Quickly in cahoots opposing him include the lawman the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the fearsome mill owner the matron Sjödahl (the actress), seen initially dismissing a newly injured worker with minimal compensation while he is still gibbering upon seeing of his pulped hand, and anyone else who profit from a community easily swayed for a few bottles of the whisky sold by the unsettling shopkeeper the merchant Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, to be fair, Lindmark’s creepiness pales once itinerant painter Beronius appears on the scene (Simon J Berger, delivering a performance of rare discomfiting power). If they are – like the pastor himself – just slightly beyond than caricatures, they are at least effective ones.
Narrative Development
With the seeds of tension planted, it is time to get down with the storyline. The maid employed by the doctor, the character Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), accordingly goes missing from the woods. Signs of her flight and bear markings upon a trunk are found but she is completely absent. Rumours and anxieties regarding a human-devouring beast prowling the woodland spread, yet the clergyman holds a different view which he and his ward set out to verify.
An Odd Beast
This Bear Drama is a slightly odd beast. It conjures a fine sense of the bleakness that allows suspicion and prejudice and dark myths thrive based on local folklore that animals can be controlled or inhabited by the souls of humans. It avoids romanticise the hardscrabble life experienced by the villagers, where violence, whether that of the wild or people, lurks constantly on the edges, poised to explode. But the characters rarely become more than ciphers – or maybe, while the conflicts between justice and revenge, logic and religion, good and wickedness intensify, emblematic figures in a fable – which stops the entire production fully coming to life.
Tonal Inconsistencies
Additionally, exist the many stylistically clashing instances in which the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and discern the maid’s destiny becomes almost risible. He stands looking at shattered containers and clumps of hair in hay barns like a combined the Belgian detective the English sleuth – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (none of whom had to taste a blend of blood droplets and saliva from his superior to agree that indeed, it was definitely coagulated blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his latest deduction and extracting a corpse out of a swamp.
Opposing Goals
The village elite are determined demonstrating that the maid met her end by an animal, perhaps to protect the calm, or possibly to shield one of their own. The pastor is intent on proving otherwise, and the proof so quickly stacks up supporting his view that once more the drama’s plausibility and the viewer’s patience are tested. In its finest moments, To Cook a Bear evokes memories of the adaptation a few years ago of Sarah Perry’s The Essex Serpent, with its evocation of the opposing allures and fears offered by rational thought and belief. At its worst, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it does seem to provide the response to that debated question: “Ladies, take the bear.”
The series is on Disney+ currently.
