An intense discussion recently went viral on social media, after someone asked the question for females: would you rather find yourself stranded in the woods with a man or a bear? Similar to the most engaging thought experiments, it revealed vastly opposing worldviews and life encounters, highlighted divides between the sexes, and was likely cause a deep personal dilemma if you thought 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 stupid they were to select the animal and went on to describe the consequences they merited for that choice. This at least enabled the women who were uncertain about their decision to make it with renewed assurance.
Dramatising the Scenario
To Cook a Bear effectively dramatises this clever small premise. This six-episode drama is adapted from Scandinavian writer Mikael Niemi’s 2018 novel with the identical title (translated in 2020 for an English audience). It traces the struggles of a pastor (the lead actor) and his family as they come to start a new ministry in Kengis, an isolated village in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. In a place lacking many joys, not one of the inhabitants especially warm to his puritanical stance on alcohol and dancing, but it is his protection of the poor – especially the native Sami population, from which hails the pastor’s foster child the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in social justice and equality that places him on a collision course with the Kengis powers that be.
The Opposing Forces
Quickly in cahoots against him are the lawman the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the fearsome mill owner Madam Sjödahl (the actress), seen initially firing a newly injured worker with a month’s pay while he is still babbling upon seeing his crushed hand, and all others who benefit from a populace easily swayed with some containers of the whisky provided by the creepy shopkeeper the merchant Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). However, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes when itinerant painter Beronius arrives on the scene (the performer, providing an acting turn of rare discomfiting power). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – only a little more than caricatures, they are at least potent archetypes.
Plot Progression
With the seeds of conflict sown, the moment arrives to proceed with the storyline. The servant employed by the doctor, the character Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), accordingly vanishes in the forest. Indications of her flight and animal scratches on a tree are found yet she remains completely absent. Gossip and anxieties regarding a human-devouring bear prowling the woodland spread, yet the clergyman holds a different view which he and his ward set out to verify.
An Odd Beast
To Cook a Bear is a slightly odd beast. It conjures a fine sense of the desolation that allows distrust and bias and grim legends thrive based on local folklore that animals might be dominated or possessed by the souls of men. It avoids idealising the hardscrabble life led by the residents, where violence, be it from the wild or mankind, lurks constantly at the periphery, waiting to erupt. But the characters rarely become beyond symbols – or maybe, while the conflicts amid fairness and revenge, logic and faith, virtue and evil escalate, emblematic figures in a fable – preventing the entire production truly becoming immersive.
Tonal Inconsistencies
Additionally, there are numerous stylistically clashing moments where the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and discern the maid’s destiny turns nearly laughable. He stands looking at shattered containers and clumps of hair in hay barns like a combined Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – alongside Jussi a rather hapless assistant figure (none of whom had to taste a mixture of blood droplets and the boss’s spit to confirm that, yes, it was definitely dried blood on the site), prior to declaring his latest deduction and extracting a body out of a swamp.
Clashing Agendas
The local leaders are bent on proving that the maid met her end by an animal, perhaps to preserve the calm, or possibly to shield a fellow elite. The pastor is intent on establishing otherwise, and the proof 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 adaptation some years back of Sarah Perry’s The Essex Serpent, through its portrayal of the opposing allures and fears offered by science and belief. At its worst, it’s more like a bear-themed police procedural. Nevertheless, it does seem to offer the answer to that debated question: “Females, choose the animal.”
The series is on Disney+ now.
