A heated debate lately spread widely on social media, after someone asked the question to women: would you rather be lost in the woods with a man or a bear? Like all the most engaging thought experiments, it revealed vastly opposing 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 men of a certain stripe took to the internet to inform females how stupid they had been for choosing the animal and went on to describe the consequences they deserved for that choice. This at minimum allowed those females who had been hesitating over their choice to decide with renewed assurance.
Portraying the Setup
To Cook a Bear effectively dramatises this clever small premise. This six-episode series is based on Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s 2018 novel of the same name (translated two years later for an English audience). It traces the tribulations of a pastor (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his household as they come to start a new ministry in Kengis, an isolated settlement in northern Sweden, in 1852. In a place lacking many joys, not one of the inhabitants particularly appreciate his puritanical approach to alcohol and dancing, yet 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 conviction in societal fairness and equal rights that sets him in direct opposition against the Kengis local authorities.
The Opposing Forces
Quickly collaborating opposing him include the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the intimidating factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed initially firing a newly injured worker with minimal compensation while he is still babbling at the sight his crushed hand, and all others who benefit from a community easily swayed for a few bottles of the whisky sold by the unsettling shopkeeper the merchant Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). However, to be fair, Lindmark’s creepiness pales when travelling artist the artist Beronius arrives on the scene (the performer, delivering a performance of exceptional discomfiting power). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, they still serve as effective ones.
Narrative Development
With the seeds of conflict sown, the moment arrives to proceed to narrative business. The servant from the doctor’s house, Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), accordingly goes missing from the woods. Signs of her flight and bear markings on a tree are found yet she remains completely absent. Gossip and anxieties of a man/maid-eating beast prowling the woods spread, yet the clergyman has another theory that he and Jussi embark to verify.
An Odd Beast
To Cook a Bear is a slightly peculiar show. It conjures a strong impression of the desolation that lets distrust and prejudice and dark myths thrive from the native legend that animals can be controlled or possessed by the souls of men. It avoids idealising the tough existence experienced by the villagers, in which brutality, whether that of the wild or people, always looms at the periphery, poised to explode. But the characters seldom evolve more than ciphers – or perhaps, while the conflicts amid fairness and vengeance, logic and faith, good and evil escalate, emblematic figures in a fable – preventing the entire production fully becoming immersive.
Tonal Inconsistencies
And then, there are the many stylistically clashing instances in which the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and discern Hilda’s fate becomes almost risible. He stands observing shattered containers and clumps of hair in hay barns like a combined Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (neither of whom had to taste a mixture of blood spatter and the boss’s spit to confirm that indeed, it was clearly coagulated blood at the crime scene), before announcing his newest conclusion and pulling a body out of a swamp.
Clashing Agendas
The village elite are bent on proving that the maid met her end by a bear, maybe to protect the calm, perhaps to shield a fellow elite. The pastor is bent on proving the opposite, and the evidence so quickly accumulates supporting his view that again the drama’s plausibility and audience tolerance are tested. At its best, 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 attractions and terrors offered by rational thought and belief. At its worst, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it appears to provide the answer to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”
The series streams on Disney+ currently.
