An intense discussion lately spread widely on social media, following someone posed the question to women: would you rather find yourself stranded in the woods with a man or a bear? Like all the best hypothetical scenarios, it revealed vastly opposing perspectives and life encounters, illuminated chasms between the sexes, and could easily cause an existential crisis for anyone pondering on it extensively. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable follow-up in which men of a certain stripe took to the internet to inform females how foolish they were to select the bear and went on to limn the punishments they merited for it. This at least enabled the women who had been hesitating about their decision to decide with a new confidence.
Dramatising the Scenario
To Cook a Bear effectively brings to life this nifty small premise. The six-part series is adapted from Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s 2018 book with the identical title (rendered in 2020 for an English audience). It traces the tribulations of a clergyman (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his family when they arrive to start a fresh religious post within Kengis, an isolated village in Sweden’s north, in 1852. In a place lacking many joys, not one of the locals particularly warm to his puritanical stance on alcohol and revelry, but it is his defense of impoverished people – especially the indigenous Sami, from which hails the pastor’s foster child the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in social justice and equal rights that sets him in direct opposition with the Kengis powers that be.
The Antagonists
Soon in cahoots against him are the sheriff the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen initially firing a newly injured laborer with a month’s pay as he remains babbling upon seeing of his pulped hand, and anyone else who profit from a populace easily swayed with some containers of liquor sold by the unsettling shopkeeper the merchant Lindmark (the actor). However, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness pales once travelling artist the artist Beronius arrives on the scene (Simon J Berger, providing a performance of exceptional unsettling intensity). If they are – like the pastor himself – only a little more being stereotypes, they are at least potent archetypes.
Narrative Development
Once the foundations of conflict sown, the moment arrives to proceed with the storyline. The maid from the doctor’s house, Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), accordingly goes missing from the woods. Signs of her escape and animal scratches upon a trunk get discovered but she is nowhere to be seen. Rumours and anxieties of a man/maid-eating beast prowling the woodland circulate, yet the clergyman holds a different view that he and Jussi embark to prove.
A Strange Creation
This Bear Drama is a somewhat peculiar show. It conjures a strong impression of the desolation that lets distrust and bias and grim legends flourish from the native legend that bears might be dominated or inhabited by the souls of humans. It avoids romanticise the tough existence experienced by the residents, in which violence, be it from nature or mankind, lurks constantly on the edges, poised to explode. But the characters rarely become beyond symbols – or perhaps, as the struggles between justice and vengeance, rationality and religion, virtue and wickedness intensify, emblematic figures in a fable – which stops the whole thing truly becoming immersive.
Stylistic Shifts
Additionally, there are the many stylistically clashing instances where the clergyman’s skill to discover clues and determine Hilda’s fate becomes nearly laughable. He stands looking at broken milk pots and clumps of hair in hay barns like a combined the Belgian detective the English sleuth – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (neither of whom had to taste a blend of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to confirm that indeed, it was clearly dried blood at the crime scene), before announcing his latest deduction and extracting a corpse out of a swamp.
Clashing Agendas
The village elite are bent on demonstrating that Hilda was killed by a bear, perhaps to preserve the peace, perhaps to protect a fellow elite. The pastor is intent on proving otherwise, and the proof so quickly accumulates in his favour that once more the drama’s plausibility and the viewer’s patience get strained. In its finest moments, To Cook a Bear is reminiscent of the TV version a few years ago of the author’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the opposing allures and fears presented by rational thought and religion. In its low points, it’s more like a bear-themed police procedural. Still, it does seem to provide the response to that debated question: “Ladies, take the bear.”
The series streams on Disney+ now.
