An intense debate recently spread widely on social media, after someone posed the question for females: would you rather find yourself stranded in a forest alongside a male or a bear? Similar to the most engaging thought experiments, it revealed wildly different perspectives and life encounters, highlighted divides among genders, and could easily cause an existential crisis if you thought about it for too long. There was also the almost inevitable coda in which some males came online to inform women how stupid they were for choosing the animal and proceeded to describe the consequences they merited for it. This at least allowed the women who were uncertain over their choice to decide with a new confidence.
Portraying the Scenario
To Cook a Bear skillfully dramatises this nifty little setup. The six-part series is based on Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s 2018 book with the identical title (translated two years later for an English audience). It traces the tribulations of a clergyman (the lead actor) and his household as they come to start a new ministry in Kengis, a remote settlement in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. In a place with few pleasures, not one of the locals particularly warm to his strict approach to drinking and dancing, but it is his defense of impoverished people – particularly the indigenous Sami, from among whom comes the preacher’s foster child Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in societal fairness and equality that places him on a collision course against the Kengis powers that be.
The Antagonists
Quickly in cahoots opposing him are the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating mill owner the matron Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed early on firing a newly injured worker with a month’s pay as he remains babbling at the sight his crushed hand, and all others who profit from a populace easily swayed for a few bottles of liquor sold by the unsettling shopkeeper the merchant Lindmark (the actor). However, to be fair, Lindmark’s eeriness pales once itinerant painter the artist Beronius appears on the scene (the performer, delivering a performance of rare unsettling intensity). While they remain – like the pastor himself – just slightly beyond than caricatures, they are at least effective ones.
Narrative Development
With the seeds of tension sown, it is time to get down with the storyline. The maid from the doctor’s house, Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), duly vanishes from the woods. Indications of her flight and bear markings on a tree are found but she is nowhere to be seen. Rumours and anxieties regarding a human-devouring beast roaming the woods spread, yet the clergyman has another theory that he and Jussi embark to verify.
A Strange Creation
This Bear Drama is a slightly peculiar show. It conjures a strong impression of the bleakness that lets distrust and bias and dark myths flourish based on local folklore that bears might be dominated or inhabited by the souls of men. And it doesn’t idealising the hardscrabble life led by the residents, where brutality, be it from the wild or mankind, always looms on the edges, poised to explode. Yet the personas seldom evolve beyond symbols – or perhaps, while the conflicts between justice and revenge, rationality and faith, virtue and evil escalate, representative characters in a fable – which stops the entire production fully becoming immersive.
Tonal Inconsistencies
And then, there are numerous tonally jarring moments in which the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and determine Hilda’s fate turns nearly laughable. He positions himself observing shattered containers and strands of fur within storage sheds as a fusion of Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (none of whom were required to taste a mixture of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to agree that indeed, it was clearly coagulated blood on the site), before announcing his latest deduction and pulling a corpse from a bog.
Clashing Agendas
The local leaders are bent on demonstrating that Hilda was killed by an animal, perhaps to preserve the calm, perhaps to shield one of their own. The pastor is intent on proving the opposite, and the proof so quickly stacks up supporting his view that once more the drama’s plausibility and the viewer’s patience get strained. In its finest moments, To Cook a Bear is reminiscent of the adaptation some years back of the author’s The Essex Serpent, with its evocation of the opposing allures and fears offered by rational thought and belief. At its worst, it’s more like a bear-themed police procedural. Nevertheless, it appears to provide the answer to that debated question: “Ladies, take the bear.”
The series streams on Disney+ currently.
