An heated discussion lately went viral on social media, after someone asked the question for females: which would you prefer find yourself stranded in the woods with a man or with a bear? Similar to the most engaging hypothetical scenarios, it exposed wildly different perspectives and experiences, highlighted divides between the sexes, and could easily cause an existential crisis for anyone pondering on it for too long. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable coda where men of a certain stripe came online to tell women how foolish they had been for choosing the bear and proceeded to describe the consequences they deserved for that choice. This at least allowed those females who had been hesitating over their choice to make it with a new confidence.
Portraying the Setup
To Cook a Bear skillfully brings to life this nifty little setup. This six-episode series is adapted from Swedish author the novelist’s 2018 novel of the same name (rendered two years later for an English audience). It follows the struggles of a pastor (the lead actor) and his family as they come to start a new ministry within Kengis, a remote village in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. In a place with few pleasures, not one of the inhabitants especially appreciate his puritanical approach to alcohol and dancing, yet it is his defense of impoverished people – particularly the indigenous Sami, from which hails the pastor’s foster child the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his conviction in societal fairness and equal rights that sets him in direct opposition against the Kengis local authorities.
The Antagonists
Soon in cahoots opposing him are the lawman Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the fearsome mill owner Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen early on dismissing a newly injured laborer with minimal compensation while he is still babbling upon seeing his crushed hand, and all others who profit from a community who can be bought with some containers of liquor sold by the creepy store owner Lindmark (the actor). Although, to be fair, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes when travelling artist Beronius appears on the scene (Simon J Berger, delivering an acting turn of exceptional unsettling intensity). 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, the moment arrives to proceed to narrative business. The maid employed by the doctor, the character Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), accordingly vanishes in the forest. Indications of her flight and bear markings on a tree are found yet she remains completely absent. Rumours and fears regarding a human-devouring beast prowling the woodland circulate, yet the clergyman has another theory which he and his ward embark to verify.
A Strange Creation
This Bear Drama is a somewhat odd beast. It conjures a fine sense of the desolation that allows distrust and prejudice and dark myths thrive based on local folklore that animals might be dominated or inhabited by the spirits of humans. And it doesn’t idealising the hardscrabble life experienced by the villagers, in which brutality, whether that of nature or mankind, lurks constantly on the edges, poised to explode. But the characters rarely become more than ciphers – or maybe, as the struggles between justice and revenge, rationality and religion, good and evil intensify, emblematic figures in a fable – which stops the entire production fully becoming immersive.
Tonal Inconsistencies
And then, there are numerous tonally jarring instances in which the pastor’s ability to discover clues and determine the maid’s destiny turns almost risible. He positions himself looking at broken milk pots and strands of fur within storage sheds like a combined the Belgian detective and Sherlock Holmes – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (neither of whom were required to taste a mixture of blood spatter and the boss’s spit to agree that indeed, it was clearly dried blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and pulling a corpse out of a swamp.
Clashing Agendas
The village elite are determined demonstrating that Hilda was killed by an animal, maybe to preserve the peace, perhaps to shield a fellow elite. The pastor is intent on proving otherwise, and the evidence so rapidly accumulates supporting his view that again the show’s credibility 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, with its evocation of the opposing attractions and terrors presented by science and religion. In its low points, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it does seem to provide the answer to that debated question: “Females, choose the animal.”
The series is on Disney+ currently.
