An heated discussion recently spread widely on social media, following a user asked a query for females: would you rather find yourself stranded in the woods alongside a male or a bear? Similar to the best hypothetical scenarios, it revealed vastly opposing perspectives and life encounters, illuminated divides among genders, and could easily cause an existential crisis if you thought about it extensively. There was also the predictable follow-up where some males took to the internet to inform females how stupid they had been to select the bear and proceeded to limn the punishments they merited for that choice. This at minimum allowed the women who had been hesitating over their choice to make it with a new confidence.
Portraying the Setup
To Cook a Bear effectively dramatises this clever small premise. This six-episode drama is based on Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s 2018 novel with the identical title (translated two years later for an English audience). It follows the tribulations of a pastor (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his household as they come to start a new ministry within Kengis, an isolated settlement in Sweden’s north, in 1852. In a place lacking many joys, not one of the inhabitants particularly warm to his strict stance on drinking and revelry, yet it is his defense of impoverished people – particularly the native Sami population, from among whom hails the preacher’s foster child Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his conviction in societal fairness and equality that sets him in direct opposition against the Kengis local authorities.
The Opposing Forces
Soon in cahoots against him are the lawman Brahe (the performer), the intimidating mill owner Madam Sjödahl (the actress), seen early on firing a newly injured worker with a month’s pay while he is still babbling at the sight his crushed hand, and anyone else who benefit from a community easily swayed for a few bottles of the whisky provided by the creepy shopkeeper the merchant Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). However, to be fair, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes once itinerant painter Beronius appears on the scene (the performer, providing a performance of exceptional discomfiting power). If they are – like the pastor himself – only a little more than caricatures, they still serve as potent archetypes.
Narrative Development
Once the foundations of tension planted, the moment arrives to get down to narrative business. The maid employed by the doctor, the character Hilda (the actress), duly goes missing in the forest. Indications of her flight and animal scratches on a tree get discovered but she is nowhere to be seen. Rumours and anxieties of a man/maid-eating bear roaming the woodland circulate, but the pastor holds a different view that he and Jussi embark to prove.
An Odd Beast
This Bear Drama is a somewhat peculiar show. It conjures a strong impression of the bleakness that lets suspicion and bias and grim legends thrive based on local folklore that bears might be dominated or possessed by the souls of men. And it doesn’t romanticise the tough existence experienced by the residents, where violence, be it from nature or mankind, always looms on the edges, poised to explode. But the characters rarely become more than ciphers – or perhaps, as the struggles between justice and vengeance, logic and religion, virtue and wickedness intensify, emblematic figures within a moral tale – which stops the entire production truly coming to life.
Tonal Inconsistencies
Additionally, exist the many tonally jarring moments in which the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and discern Hilda’s fate turns almost risible. He stands looking at broken milk pots and strands of fur within storage sheds like a combined the Belgian detective and Sherlock Holmes – alongside Jussi a rather hapless assistant figure (none of whom had to lick a blend of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to confirm that indeed, it was clearly coagulated blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and pulling a corpse from a bog.
Clashing Agendas
The village elite are determined proving that the maid met her end by a bear, maybe to preserve the peace, or possibly to shield a fellow elite. The clergyman is bent on establishing otherwise, and the evidence so quickly accumulates in his favour that once more the show’s credibility and audience tolerance 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 Essex Serpent, through its portrayal of the opposing attractions and fears presented by rational thought and belief. At its worst, it’s more like a bear-themed police procedural. Still, it appears to provide the response to the earlier query: “Females, choose the animal.”
To Cook a Bear is on Disney+ currently.
