A intense debate recently spread widely on social media, after someone asked a query to women: which would you prefer be lost in a forest alongside a male or a bear? Like all the most engaging hypothetical scenarios, it exposed vastly opposing worldviews and experiences, illuminated chasms between the sexes, and was likely to induce a deep personal dilemma if you thought on it extensively. There was also the almost inevitable follow-up in which men of a certain stripe took to the internet to inform females how stupid they had been for choosing the animal and went on to describe the consequences they deserved for it. This at minimum allowed those females who had been hesitating over their choice to decide with renewed assurance.
Dramatising the Setup
To Cook a Bear skillfully dramatises this nifty small premise. The six-part series is adapted on Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s 2018 novel of the same name (rendered in 2020 for English readers). It traces the struggles of a clergyman (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his household as they come to start a fresh religious post within Kengis, a remote village in Sweden’s north, in 1852. In a place lacking many joys, not one of the locals especially appreciate his puritanical stance on drinking and revelry, but it is his protection of the poor – especially the indigenous Sami, from which comes the pastor’s foster child Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his conviction in social justice and equal rights that places him in direct opposition with the Kengis local authorities.
The Opposing Forces
Soon collaborating opposing him include the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the fearsome mill owner Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen early on dismissing a newly injured worker with a month’s pay while he is still gibbering at the sight of his pulped hand, and all others who profit from a community who can be bought for a few bottles of liquor sold by the unsettling store owner the merchant Lindmark (the actor). However, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness pales when travelling artist Beronius appears on the scene (Simon J Berger, delivering an acting turn of rare discomfiting power). While they remain – like the pastor himself – only a little more than caricatures, they are at least effective ones.
Plot Progression
Once the foundations of tension sown, it is time to get down to narrative business. The maid employed by the doctor, Hilda (the actress), duly goes missing from the woods. Indications of her escape and bear markings upon a trunk get discovered yet she remains nowhere to be seen. Rumours and fears regarding a human-devouring beast prowling the woods circulate, yet the clergyman has another theory that he and Jussi embark to verify.
An Odd Beast
To Cook a Bear is a somewhat peculiar show. It conjures a strong impression of the bleakness that allows distrust and bias and dark myths flourish based on local folklore that bears can be controlled or possessed by the spirits of humans. It avoids romanticise the hardscrabble life experienced by the residents, where violence, be it from the wild or mankind, lurks constantly at the periphery, poised to explode. But the characters rarely become beyond symbols – or maybe, while the conflicts amid fairness and vengeance, rationality and faith, good and wickedness intensify, representative characters in a fable – which stops the whole thing truly coming to life.
Tonal Inconsistencies
And then, there are the many tonally jarring moments where the pastor’s ability to discover clues and determine the maid’s destiny turns nearly laughable. He positions himself observing broken milk pots and clumps of hair within storage sheds as a fusion of Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (neither of whom were required to lick a mixture of blood spatter and the boss’s spit to confirm that indeed, it was clearly coagulated blood on the site), before announcing his newest conclusion and extracting a corpse from a bog.
Clashing Agendas
The village elite are bent on proving that Hilda met her end by an animal, maybe to preserve the peace, or possibly to shield one of their own. The clergyman is intent on establishing otherwise, and the evidence so quickly stacks up supporting his view that once more the drama’s plausibility and audience tolerance get strained. At its best, To Cook a Bear evokes memories of the adaptation a few years ago of Sarah Perry’s The Essex Serpent, through its portrayal of the opposing allures and terrors offered by rational thought and religion. At its worst, it’s more like a bear-themed police procedural. Still, it does seem to provide the answer to that debated question: “Females, choose the animal.”
The series streams on Disney+ currently.
