A intense debate recently went viral on social media, following someone posed the question to women: which would you prefer find yourself stranded in a forest alongside a male or a bear? Like all the most engaging thought experiments, it revealed vastly opposing perspectives and experiences, highlighted chasms between the sexes, and could easily cause a deep personal dilemma for anyone pondering about it extensively. Additionally, there came the predictable coda in which some males took to the internet to inform women how foolish they had been for choosing the animal and went on to describe the punishments they deserved for it. This at least enabled those females who were uncertain about their decision to make it with a new confidence.
Dramatising the Setup
To Cook a Bear effectively dramatises this nifty little setup. The six-part series is based on Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s 2018 book of the same name (rendered in 2020 for English readers). It traces the tribulations of a clergyman (the lead actor) and his household when they arrive to start a fresh religious post within Kengis, an isolated settlement in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. In a place lacking many joys, none of the inhabitants especially appreciate his puritanical stance on alcohol and dancing, but it is his protection of the poor – especially the indigenous Sami, from among whom comes the preacher’s foster child the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in societal fairness and equality that places him in direct opposition against the Kengis powers that be.
The Antagonists
Soon collaborating opposing him are the sheriff the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating mill owner Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen early on dismissing a newly injured worker with minimal compensation as he remains gibbering upon seeing of his pulped hand, and all others who benefit from a populace who can be bought for a few bottles of the whisky provided by the creepy shopkeeper Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). However, to be fair, Lindmark’s creepiness pales once itinerant painter the artist Beronius arrives on the scene (Simon J Berger, delivering an acting turn of exceptional unsettling intensity). If they are – like the pastor himself – just slightly beyond than caricatures, they are at least potent archetypes.
Narrative Development
With the seeds of tension planted, it is time to proceed with the storyline. The maid employed by the doctor, the character Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), accordingly vanishes in the forest. Indications of her escape and animal scratches on a tree get discovered but she is nowhere to be seen. Rumours and fears regarding a human-devouring beast prowling the woodland spread, yet the clergyman holds a different view that he and Jussi set out to verify.
A Strange Creation
This Bear Drama is a slightly peculiar show. It conjures a fine sense of the desolation that allows distrust and bias and dark myths thrive based on local folklore that bears can be controlled or inhabited by the souls of men. And it doesn’t idealising the hardscrabble life experienced by the residents, in which brutality, be it from nature or mankind, always looms at the periphery, poised to explode. Yet the personas rarely become beyond symbols – or maybe, as the struggles between justice and vengeance, rationality and religion, good and evil intensify, emblematic figures within a moral tale – which stops the entire production truly becoming immersive.
Stylistic Shifts
And then, there are numerous tonally jarring instances where the pastor’s ability to discover clues and determine Hilda’s fate becomes nearly laughable. He stands looking at broken milk pots and strands of fur within storage sheds like a combined Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – with Jussi a rather hapless assistant figure (neither of whom were required to taste a blend of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to agree that indeed, it was clearly dried blood on the site), before announcing his latest deduction and pulling a corpse from a bog.
Opposing Goals
The village elite are determined proving that Hilda was killed by an animal, perhaps to protect the peace, perhaps to shield one of their own. The clergyman is intent on establishing the opposite, and the evidence so rapidly stacks up supporting his view that again the drama’s plausibility and the viewer’s patience get strained. At its best, To Cook a Bear is reminiscent of the TV version some years back of the author’s The Essex Serpent, through its portrayal of the competing attractions and terrors presented by rational thought and religion. In its low points, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Nevertheless, it does seem to offer the response to that debated question: “Ladies, take the bear.”
The series is on Disney+ now.
