A heated debate lately spread widely across online platforms, following a user posed a query to women: which would you prefer be lost in the woods alongside a male or a bear? Like all the best hypothetical scenarios, it revealed wildly different worldviews and life encounters, illuminated chasms among genders, and was likely to induce a deep personal dilemma for anyone pondering on it for too long. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable coda where some males came online to inform females how stupid they were for choosing the animal and went on to limn the punishments they deserved for that choice. This at least allowed the women who had been hesitating over their choice to decide with renewed assurance.
Dramatising the Scenario
To Cook a Bear effectively dramatises this nifty little setup. The six-part series is adapted on Scandinavian writer Mikael Niemi’s 2018 book of the same name (translated two years later for English readers). It traces the struggles of a clergyman (the lead actor) and his family when they arrive to begin a new ministry within Kengis, a remote village in northern Sweden, in 1852. In a place lacking many joys, none of the locals especially appreciate his puritanical stance on drinking and dancing, yet it is his defense of the poor – especially the indigenous Sami, from among whom comes the preacher’s adopted son Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his conviction in societal fairness and equality that places him in direct opposition against the Kengis powers that be.
The Antagonists
Soon in cahoots against him include the lawman the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the intimidating factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed early on dismissing a newly injured laborer with a month’s pay while he is still babbling at the sight his crushed hand, and all others who benefit from a community who can be bought with some containers of liquor provided by the unsettling store owner the merchant Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). However, to be fair, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes when travelling artist the artist Beronius appears on the scene (Simon J Berger, providing an acting turn of exceptional discomfiting power). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, they still serve as potent archetypes.
Narrative Development
Once the foundations of tension planted, the moment arrives to proceed with the storyline. The servant employed by the doctor, Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), accordingly vanishes in the forest. Indications of her escape and bear markings upon a trunk get discovered yet she remains completely absent. Gossip and anxieties of a man/maid-eating beast roaming the woodland circulate, but the pastor has another theory that he and Jussi set out to prove.
A Strange Creation
This Bear Drama is a slightly odd beast. It conjures a strong impression of the bleakness that allows distrust and bias and grim legends flourish from the native legend that bears might be dominated or possessed by the souls of men. It avoids idealising the tough existence led by the villagers, where brutality, whether that of nature or mankind, lurks constantly on the edges, waiting to erupt. But the characters seldom evolve beyond symbols – or maybe, as the struggles amid fairness and vengeance, rationality and faith, virtue and evil intensify, emblematic figures within a moral tale – which stops the whole thing fully coming to life.
Tonal Inconsistencies
And then, exist the many stylistically clashing instances where the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and discern Hilda’s fate becomes nearly laughable. He positions himself looking at broken milk pots and strands of fur within storage sheds as a fusion of Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (neither of whom had to lick a mixture of blood droplets and saliva from his superior to agree that, yes, it was clearly dried blood on the site), before announcing his latest deduction and pulling a body out of a swamp.
Opposing Goals
The local leaders are bent on proving that Hilda was killed by a bear, maybe to preserve the peace, perhaps to protect a fellow elite. The clergyman is bent on establishing the opposite, and the evidence so quickly stacks up supporting his view that again the drama’s plausibility and audience tolerance are tested. In its finest moments, To Cook a Bear is reminiscent of the adaptation a few years ago of Sarah Perry’s The Essex Serpent, through its portrayal of the competing attractions and terrors offered by science and religion. 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+ now.
