A intense debate recently went viral across online platforms, following someone asked the question for females: would you rather find yourself stranded in a forest with a man or a bear? Similar to the best hypothetical scenarios, it revealed wildly different perspectives and experiences, illuminated divides between the sexes, and could easily cause a deep personal dilemma if you thought on it extensively. There was also the predictable follow-up in which some males took to the internet to inform females how stupid they had been for choosing the animal and went on to limn the punishments they deserved for it. This at minimum allowed the women who had been hesitating over their choice to decide with renewed assurance.
Portraying the Setup
To Cook a Bear effectively brings to life this nifty small premise. This six-episode drama is adapted on Scandinavian writer Mikael Niemi’s 2018 book with the identical title (translated two years later for English readers). It follows the tribulations of a clergyman (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his family when they arrive to begin a fresh religious post in Kengis, a remote settlement in Sweden’s north, in 1852. In a place lacking many joys, none of the locals particularly warm to his puritanical approach to drinking and revelry, but it is his defense of impoverished people – particularly the native Sami population, from which comes the preacher’s adopted son the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his conviction in societal fairness and equal rights that places him in direct opposition with the Kengis powers that be.
The Opposing Forces
Soon in cahoots against him include the lawman the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the fearsome factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen initially dismissing a newly injured laborer with minimal compensation as he remains gibbering upon seeing of his pulped hand, and anyone else who profit from a community easily swayed with some containers of the whisky sold by the unsettling shopkeeper the merchant Lindmark (the actor). However, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes once itinerant painter the artist Beronius appears in the story (Simon J Berger, delivering an acting turn of exceptional unsettling intensity). While they remain – like the pastor himself – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, they are at least potent archetypes.
Plot Progression
With the seeds of conflict planted, the moment arrives to proceed with the storyline. The servant from the doctor’s house, the character Hilda (the actress), accordingly goes missing from the woods. Signs of her escape and animal scratches upon a trunk are found but she is completely absent. Gossip and fears of a man/maid-eating beast prowling the woodland circulate, but the pastor holds a different view which he and his ward embark to prove.
An Odd Beast
This Bear Drama is a somewhat odd beast. It creates a fine sense of the desolation that lets suspicion and bias and grim legends thrive based on local folklore that bears can be controlled or possessed by the souls of men. It avoids romanticise the hardscrabble life experienced by the villagers, in which violence, be it from the wild or mankind, always looms on the edges, poised to explode. But the characters rarely become more than ciphers – or perhaps, while the conflicts amid fairness and vengeance, logic and religion, good and evil intensify, representative characters within a moral tale – preventing the entire production fully becoming immersive.
Tonal Inconsistencies
And then, there are numerous stylistically clashing moments in which the clergyman’s skill to discover clues and determine the maid’s destiny turns nearly laughable. He stands looking at shattered containers and strands of fur within storage sheds as a fusion of the Belgian detective the English sleuth – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (none of whom were required to taste a mixture of blood spatter 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 corpse out of a swamp.
Opposing Goals
The local leaders are bent on proving that the maid was killed by a bear, perhaps to protect the peace, perhaps to protect a fellow elite. The clergyman is intent on proving otherwise, and the proof so quickly stacks up in his favour that once more the show’s credibility and the viewer’s patience are tested. At its best, To Cook a Bear is reminiscent of the adaptation a few years ago of the author’s The Essex Serpent, with its evocation of the opposing attractions and terrors offered by rational thought and religion. In its low points, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Nevertheless, it does seem to offer the answer to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”
The series is on Disney+ currently.
