A intense debate lately spread widely on social media, after someone asked a query to women: would you rather be lost in the woods alongside a male or a bear? Like all the best thought experiments, it revealed wildly different worldviews and experiences, highlighted divides among genders, and could easily to induce a deep personal dilemma if you thought on it for too long. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable follow-up where some males came online to inform females how foolish they had been for choosing the bear and went on to describe the consequences they merited for it. This at least enabled the women who were uncertain over their choice to decide with a new confidence.
Portraying 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 book of the same name (translated two years later for English readers). It traces the struggles of a clergyman (the lead actor) and his household when they arrive to start a new ministry in Kengis, a remote village in Sweden’s north, during the mid-19th century. In a place lacking many joys, not one of the locals especially appreciate his strict stance on drinking and revelry, but it is his protection of impoverished people – particularly the native Sami population, from among whom hails the preacher’s adopted son the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his conviction in societal fairness and equal rights that places him on a collision course against the Kengis local authorities.
The Opposing Forces
Quickly in cahoots against him are the lawman Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the fearsome factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen early on firing a newly injured worker with a month’s pay while he is still gibbering upon seeing of his pulped hand, and all others who benefit from a populace easily swayed with some containers of liquor provided by the creepy shopkeeper Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, to be fair, Lindmark’s eeriness pales once travelling artist the artist Beronius appears on the scene (Simon J Berger, providing an acting turn of exceptional discomfiting power). If they are – similar to the clergyman – only a little more than caricatures, they are at least effective ones.
Narrative Development
With the seeds of tension planted, it is time to get down with the storyline. The servant from the doctor’s house, Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), accordingly goes missing in the forest. Signs of her escape and animal scratches upon a trunk are found yet she remains completely absent. Gossip and fears of a man/maid-eating bear prowling the woods circulate, but the pastor holds a different view that he and Jussi set out to verify.
An Odd Beast
To Cook a Bear is a slightly odd beast. It conjures a fine sense of the desolation that lets suspicion and prejudice and grim legends thrive based on local folklore that animals can be controlled or possessed by the spirits of humans. And it doesn’t idealising the hardscrabble life experienced by the residents, in which violence, be it from nature or mankind, lurks constantly on the edges, waiting to erupt. Yet the personas seldom evolve more than ciphers – or perhaps, while the conflicts between justice and vengeance, rationality and faith, virtue and evil escalate, representative characters in a fable – preventing the whole thing fully becoming immersive.
Tonal Inconsistencies
And then, there are the many tonally jarring moments where the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and discern Hilda’s fate becomes almost risible. He stands looking at broken milk pots and clumps of hair within storage sheds like a combined Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (none of whom had to lick a mixture of blood droplets and the boss’s spit to confirm that, yes, it was definitely coagulated blood on the site), prior to declaring his latest deduction and extracting a body out of a swamp.
Clashing Agendas
The local leaders are determined demonstrating that Hilda was killed by an animal, maybe to preserve the calm, or possibly to protect one of their own. The clergyman is bent on proving the opposite, and the evidence so quickly accumulates in his favour that once more the drama’s plausibility and audience tolerance get strained. At its best, To Cook a Bear evokes memories of the TV version a few years ago of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the opposing attractions and terrors offered by rational thought and religion. At its worst, it resembles a bear-themed police procedural. Still, it does seem to provide the response to that debated question: “Ladies, take the bear.”
To Cook a Bear is on Disney+ currently.
