An heated discussion recently went viral on social media, after a user posed a query for females: would you rather find yourself stranded in a forest with a man or a bear? Similar to the most engaging thought experiments, it revealed vastly opposing worldviews and life encounters, illuminated divides between the sexes, and was likely to induce a deep personal dilemma for anyone pondering about it for too long. There was also the almost inevitable follow-up where some males took to the internet to inform females how foolish they were for choosing the bear and proceeded to describe the punishments they deserved for that choice. This at least allowed the women who were uncertain over their choice to decide with a new confidence.
Portraying the Scenario
To Cook a Bear effectively brings to life this nifty little setup. This six-episode drama is based from Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s 2018 book with the identical title (rendered two years later for English readers). It follows the struggles of a pastor (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his family as they come to start a new ministry within Kengis, a remote village in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. Within a community with few pleasures, not one of the inhabitants especially warm to his puritanical approach to alcohol and revelry, but it is his protection of the poor – especially the native Sami population, from among whom hails the pastor’s foster child Jussi (the young actor) – and his conviction in social justice and equal rights that places him in direct opposition with the Kengis local authorities.
The Antagonists
Soon collaborating against him are the lawman Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the fearsome mill owner Madam Sjödahl (the actress), observed initially dismissing a newly injured laborer with a month’s pay while he is still gibbering upon seeing of his pulped hand, and anyone else who profit from a community who can be bought with some containers of liquor provided by the unsettling shopkeeper the merchant Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes when travelling artist Beronius appears in the story (Simon J Berger, delivering a performance of exceptional unsettling intensity). While they remain – like the pastor himself – only a little more than caricatures, they are at least potent archetypes.
Plot Progression
With the seeds of tension sown, it is time to get down with the storyline. The maid from the doctor’s house, Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), duly goes missing in the forest. Indications of her flight and bear markings on a tree get discovered yet she remains nowhere to be seen. Rumours and fears regarding a human-devouring beast prowling the woodland circulate, but the pastor has another theory which he and his ward embark to verify.
A Strange Creation
To Cook a Bear is a somewhat odd beast. It conjures a fine sense of the desolation that allows distrust and prejudice and dark myths thrive based on local folklore that bears might be dominated or inhabited by the souls of humans. It avoids idealising the tough existence led by the residents, in which violence, be it from nature or people, always looms on the edges, waiting to erupt. But the characters rarely become more than ciphers – or perhaps, while the conflicts amid fairness and revenge, logic and faith, good and evil escalate, emblematic figures in a fable – preventing the entire production fully becoming immersive.
Stylistic Shifts
And then, exist the many stylistically clashing moments in which the clergyman’s skill to discover clues and discern Hilda’s fate becomes nearly laughable. He positions himself observing broken milk pots and strands of fur in hay barns as a fusion of Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (none of whom had to lick a mixture of blood droplets and saliva from his superior to agree that indeed, it was definitely coagulated blood on the site), before announcing his latest deduction and pulling a body from a bog.
Clashing Agendas
The local leaders are determined demonstrating that the maid was killed by a bear, maybe to protect the calm, perhaps to shield a fellow elite. The pastor is intent on establishing the opposite, and the proof so quickly accumulates in his favour that again the drama’s plausibility and audience tolerance are tested. At its best, the series evokes memories of the TV version a few years ago of the author’s The Essex Serpent, through its portrayal of the competing allures and terrors offered by rational thought and religion. In its low points, it’s more like Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it appears to provide the answer to that debated question: “Females, choose the animal.”
The series streams on Disney+ now.
