A heated discussion recently spread widely on social media, following a user posed a query to women: would you rather find yourself stranded in the woods with a man or a bear? Similar to the best hypothetical scenarios, it revealed wildly different worldviews and experiences, highlighted chasms between the sexes, and was likely to induce a deep personal dilemma if you thought on it extensively. There was also the predictable coda where men of a certain stripe took to the internet to tell females how stupid they had been to select the bear and went on to limn the consequences they deserved for it. This at least enabled those females who were uncertain over their choice to make it with renewed assurance.
Dramatising the Setup
To Cook a Bear skillfully dramatises this nifty little setup. This six-episode series is adapted on Scandinavian writer Mikael Niemi’s 2018 novel of the same name (translated two years later for English readers). It follows the struggles of a clergyman (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his household when they arrive to start a new ministry in Kengis, an isolated settlement in northern Sweden, in 1852. Within a community with few pleasures, not one of the inhabitants particularly appreciate his strict stance on drinking and dancing, yet it is his protection of the poor – particularly the indigenous Sami, from which hails the pastor’s adopted son Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in societal fairness and equality that sets him in direct opposition against the Kengis local authorities.
The Antagonists
Soon in cahoots opposing him include the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the fearsome factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed early on firing a recently mangled laborer with minimal compensation while he is still babbling upon seeing of his pulped hand, and all others who profit from a community easily swayed with some containers of liquor provided by the creepy store owner Lindmark (the actor). However, to be fair, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes when travelling artist the artist Beronius arrives in the story (the performer, providing a performance of rare discomfiting power). If they are – like the pastor himself – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, they are at least potent archetypes.
Narrative Development
With the seeds of tension sown, the moment arrives to get down with the storyline. The maid employed by the doctor, Hilda (the actress), duly goes missing in the forest. Signs of her escape and bear markings on a tree get discovered yet she remains nowhere to be seen. Gossip and anxieties regarding a human-devouring beast roaming the woods spread, but the pastor holds a different view which he and his ward embark to verify.
An Odd Beast
To Cook a Bear is a somewhat peculiar show. It conjures a strong impression of the desolation that lets suspicion and prejudice and dark myths thrive from the native legend that animals might be dominated or inhabited by the spirits of humans. It avoids idealising the tough existence experienced by the residents, in which brutality, whether that of nature or mankind, always looms at the periphery, poised to explode. But the characters seldom evolve beyond symbols – or maybe, as the struggles amid fairness and revenge, logic and faith, virtue and wickedness escalate, representative characters within a moral tale – preventing the whole thing truly becoming immersive.
Tonal Inconsistencies
And then, exist numerous tonally jarring moments in which the clergyman’s skill to discover clues and discern Hilda’s fate turns nearly laughable. He positions himself looking at shattered containers and strands of fur in hay barns as a fusion of the Belgian detective and Sherlock Holmes – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (none of whom were required to taste a blend of blood droplets and saliva from his superior to confirm that indeed, it was clearly coagulated blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and extracting a body out of a swamp.
Opposing Goals
The village elite are determined proving that Hilda met her end by a bear, perhaps to protect the calm, perhaps to shield a fellow elite. The clergyman is bent on establishing the opposite, and the evidence so quickly stacks up in his favour that once more the drama’s plausibility and the viewer’s patience are tested. At its best, 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 Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Nevertheless, it appears to offer the response to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”
The series is on Disney+ now.
