A heated debate recently went viral on social media, following someone posed a query to women: which would you prefer find yourself stranded in the woods with a man or a bear? Like all the best hypothetical scenarios, it revealed vastly opposing worldviews and experiences, illuminated chasms among genders, and could easily to induce a deep personal dilemma if you thought on it for too long. There was also the predictable coda where some males came online to tell females how foolish they were to select the bear and proceeded to describe 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.
Dramatising the Setup
To Cook a Bear skillfully dramatises this clever little setup. The six-part series is based from Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s 2018 novel of the same name (translated two years later for English readers). It traces the tribulations of a clergyman (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his family as they come to start a fresh religious post within Kengis, an isolated village in Sweden’s north, during the mid-19th century. Within a community lacking many joys, none of the locals particularly warm to his puritanical stance on drinking and revelry, yet it is his protection of the poor – especially the indigenous Sami, from which comes the preacher’s adopted son Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his belief in societal fairness and equal rights that places him in direct opposition with the Kengis powers that be.
The Antagonists
Quickly collaborating against him include the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating mill owner Madam Sjödahl (the actress), seen initially firing a recently mangled worker with minimal compensation while he is still gibbering upon seeing of his pulped hand, and all others who benefit from a populace easily swayed for a few bottles of the whisky sold by the creepy shopkeeper Lindmark (the actor). However, to be fair, Lindmark’s eeriness pales once travelling artist the artist Beronius arrives in the story (Simon J Berger, delivering 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
Once the foundations of conflict sown, the moment arrives to proceed to narrative business. The servant employed by the doctor, the character Hilda (the actress), accordingly goes missing from the woods. Indications of her escape and animal scratches upon a trunk get discovered but she is completely absent. Gossip and fears of a man/maid-eating beast prowling the woodland circulate, yet the clergyman holds a different view that he and Jussi embark to verify.
A Strange Creation
This Bear Drama is a slightly peculiar show. It conjures a fine sense of the bleakness that lets suspicion and prejudice and dark myths thrive from the native legend that animals can be controlled or inhabited by the souls of men. And it doesn’t romanticise the tough existence experienced by the residents, in which brutality, whether that of nature or people, lurks constantly at the periphery, waiting to erupt. Yet the personas rarely become beyond symbols – or perhaps, as the struggles amid fairness and revenge, logic and religion, good and evil intensify, emblematic figures within a moral tale – preventing the entire production fully becoming immersive.
Tonal Inconsistencies
And then, there are numerous tonally jarring moments where the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and determine Hilda’s fate turns nearly laughable. He positions himself observing broken milk pots and strands of fur in hay barns like a combined the Belgian detective the English sleuth – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (none of whom were required to taste a blend of blood droplets and the boss’s spit to confirm that, yes, it was clearly dried blood at the crime scene), before announcing his latest deduction and pulling a corpse out of a swamp.
Opposing Goals
The village elite are bent on demonstrating that Hilda met her end by an animal, perhaps to protect the calm, or possibly to protect a fellow elite. The pastor is intent on proving otherwise, and the proof so quickly stacks up supporting his view that once more the show’s credibility and audience tolerance are tested. In its finest moments, To Cook a Bear evokes memories of the TV version a few years ago of the author’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the competing allures and terrors offered by rational thought and religion. At its worst, it’s more like Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it appears to provide the answer to the earlier query: “Females, choose the animal.”
To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ now.
