A heated debate recently spread widely across online platforms, after someone asked the question for females: which would you prefer find yourself stranded in a forest alongside a male or with a bear? Similar to the most engaging thought experiments, it revealed wildly different perspectives and experiences, illuminated chasms among genders, and was likely to induce an existential crisis if you thought about it for too long. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable coda in which some males came online to inform females how foolish they were for choosing the animal and proceeded to describe the punishments they merited for it. This at least enabled those females who had been hesitating over their choice to make it with a new confidence.
Portraying the Scenario
To Cook a Bear skillfully brings to life this nifty small premise. The six-part drama is adapted from Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s 2018 book with the identical title (rendered two years later for English readers). It traces the struggles of a pastor (the lead actor) and his household as they come to begin a fresh religious post in Kengis, a remote settlement in northern Sweden, in 1852. In a place lacking many joys, none of the locals especially warm to his puritanical stance on drinking and revelry, yet it is his protection of impoverished people – especially the indigenous Sami, from among whom comes the pastor’s adopted son the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his belief in societal fairness and equal rights that sets him on a collision course against the Kengis local authorities.
The Opposing Forces
Quickly collaborating against him are the sheriff the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the intimidating mill owner Madam Sjödahl (the actress), observed initially dismissing a recently mangled worker with a month’s pay as he remains gibbering at the sight his crushed hand, and all others who benefit from a community easily swayed for a few bottles of liquor provided by the creepy shopkeeper the merchant Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, to be fair, Lindmark’s eeriness pales when travelling artist Beronius arrives in the story (Simon J Berger, providing an acting turn of exceptional discomfiting power). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – only a little more than caricatures, they still serve as potent archetypes.
Plot Progression
Once the foundations of conflict sown, the moment arrives to get down to narrative business. The maid from the doctor’s house, Hilda (the actress), accordingly goes missing from the woods. Signs of her flight and animal scratches on a tree get discovered yet she remains nowhere to be seen. Rumours and fears of a man/maid-eating beast prowling the woodland circulate, yet the clergyman holds a different view that he and Jussi set out to prove.
An Odd Beast
To Cook a Bear is a slightly peculiar show. It conjures a strong impression of the desolation that allows distrust and bias and grim legends flourish from the native legend that animals can be controlled or possessed by the souls of humans. It avoids romanticise the hardscrabble life led by the residents, in which violence, be it from the wild or mankind, always looms at the periphery, waiting to erupt. But the characters seldom evolve more than ciphers – or maybe, as the struggles amid fairness and revenge, rationality and faith, good and evil escalate, emblematic figures in a fable – which stops the entire production fully becoming immersive.
Stylistic Shifts
Additionally, there are numerous stylistically clashing moments where the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and discern the maid’s destiny turns almost risible. He stands looking at shattered containers and clumps of hair within storage sheds as a fusion of the Belgian detective and Sherlock Holmes – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (none of whom had to lick a mixture of blood droplets and the boss’s spit to confirm that, yes, it was definitely dried blood at the crime scene), before announcing his newest conclusion and extracting a body from a bog.
Opposing Goals
The village elite are bent on demonstrating that Hilda met her end by an animal, maybe to preserve the peace, perhaps to shield a fellow elite. The clergyman is intent on proving otherwise, and the proof so quickly accumulates in his favour that once more 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 Essex Serpent, through its portrayal of the opposing allures and fears offered by science and belief. At its worst, it’s more like Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Nevertheless, it does seem to offer the response to that debated question: “Females, choose the animal.”
The series is on Disney+ now.
