A intense debate lately spread widely on social media, following someone posed a query to women: which would you prefer find yourself stranded in a forest alongside a male or with a bear? Similar to the best thought experiments, it revealed wildly different perspectives and life encounters, highlighted divides between the sexes, and was likely to induce a deep personal dilemma if you thought on it extensively. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable follow-up where some males took to the internet to inform women how foolish they were to select the bear and went on to limn the punishments they deserved for that choice. This at minimum enabled the women who were uncertain over their choice to decide with renewed assurance.
Dramatising the Setup
To Cook a Bear skillfully brings to life this clever small premise. The six-part series is based from Scandinavian writer Mikael Niemi’s 2018 novel of the same name (translated two years later for English readers). It traces the struggles of a clergyman (the lead actor) and his family when they arrive to begin a new ministry within Kengis, a remote village in Sweden’s north, during the mid-19th century. In a place lacking many joys, not one of the locals especially warm to his strict approach to alcohol and revelry, yet it is his protection of impoverished people – especially the native Sami population, from among whom comes the preacher’s foster child the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his belief in social justice and equality that sets him in direct opposition with the Kengis local authorities.
The Opposing Forces
Quickly in cahoots against him are the lawman Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the fearsome mill owner the matron Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen initially dismissing a newly injured laborer with minimal compensation as he remains gibbering upon seeing of his pulped hand, and all others who benefit from a populace easily swayed with some containers of liquor provided by the unsettling store owner the merchant Lindmark (the actor). Although, to be fair, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes when itinerant painter the artist Beronius arrives in the story (the performer, providing an acting turn of rare unsettling intensity). If they are – similar to the clergyman – only a little more than caricatures, they are at least potent archetypes.
Plot Progression
With the seeds of conflict planted, the moment arrives to get down with the storyline. The maid from the doctor’s house, the character Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), duly goes missing from the woods. Indications of her escape and bear markings upon a trunk get discovered but she is completely absent. Rumours and fears of a man/maid-eating beast roaming the woods circulate, but the pastor holds a different view which he and his ward embark to prove.
A Strange Creation
To Cook a Bear is a somewhat odd beast. It creates a strong impression of the bleakness that allows suspicion and bias and dark myths thrive from the native legend that animals can be controlled or possessed by the souls of men. It avoids romanticise the hardscrabble life experienced by the residents, in which violence, be it from the wild or people, always looms at the periphery, poised to explode. Yet the personas rarely become beyond symbols – or maybe, while the conflicts between justice and revenge, logic and religion, good and evil intensify, representative characters within a moral tale – preventing the entire production truly becoming immersive.
Stylistic Shifts
Additionally, exist the many tonally jarring moments in which the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and determine Hilda’s fate becomes nearly laughable. He stands observing broken milk pots and clumps of hair within storage sheds like a combined Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (none of whom were required to lick a blend of blood droplets and the boss’s spit to agree that, yes, it was definitely coagulated blood on the site), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and extracting a body out of a swamp.
Opposing Goals
The local leaders are bent on proving that Hilda was killed by a bear, maybe to preserve the peace, or possibly to protect one of their own. The pastor is intent on proving otherwise, and the evidence so rapidly stacks up in his favour that again the show’s credibility and the viewer’s patience get strained. In its finest moments, the series is reminiscent of the adaptation a few years ago of the author’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the competing attractions and terrors offered by science and belief. At its worst, it’s more like Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Nevertheless, it appears to offer the response to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”
To Cook a Bear is on Disney+ currently.
