An intense debate recently spread widely on social media, following a user asked the question for females: would you rather be lost in the woods with a man or a bear? Similar to the best hypothetical scenarios, it revealed vastly opposing perspectives and experiences, illuminated divides among genders, and could easily cause a deep personal dilemma if you thought about it extensively. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable follow-up where some males took to the internet to tell women how foolish they had been for choosing the bear and went on to limn 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 effectively dramatises this clever small premise. This six-episode drama is based from Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s 2018 book of the same name (translated two years later for an English audience). It follows the tribulations of a pastor (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his household as they come to begin a new ministry in Kengis, an isolated village in northern Sweden, in 1852. Within a community lacking many joys, none of the inhabitants especially appreciate his puritanical stance on alcohol and dancing, yet it is his defense of impoverished people – particularly the native Sami population, from which hails the pastor’s foster child Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his belief in societal fairness and equal rights that places him on a collision course against the Kengis powers that be.
The Antagonists
Soon in cahoots opposing him are the lawman the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the intimidating mill owner the matron Sjödahl (the actress), seen early on firing a newly injured worker with minimal compensation while he is still babbling at the sight his crushed hand, and anyone else who benefit from a community who can be bought for a few bottles of liquor provided by the unsettling store owner Lindmark (the actor). However, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes when travelling artist the artist Beronius arrives in the story (the performer, providing a performance of rare unsettling intensity). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – only a little more than caricatures, they still serve as effective ones.
Narrative Development
With the seeds of tension sown, it is time to get down with the storyline. The servant employed by the doctor, Hilda (the actress), duly goes missing from the woods. Signs of her escape and animal scratches upon a trunk get discovered yet she remains completely absent. Gossip and fears regarding a human-devouring beast roaming the woodland circulate, yet the clergyman holds a different view which he and his ward embark to verify.
A Strange Creation
To Cook a Bear is a slightly odd beast. It creates a strong impression of the bleakness that lets distrust and bias and grim legends flourish from the native legend that bears can be controlled or inhabited by the souls of men. And it doesn’t idealising the tough existence experienced by the villagers, where brutality, whether that of nature or people, always looms at the periphery, waiting to erupt. But the characters rarely become more than ciphers – or perhaps, as the struggles between justice and vengeance, rationality and faith, good and wickedness intensify, representative characters within a moral tale – preventing the entire production fully becoming immersive.
Tonal Inconsistencies
Additionally, exist numerous stylistically clashing moments where the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and determine the maid’s destiny becomes almost risible. He positions himself looking at broken milk pots and strands of fur in hay barns as a fusion of the Belgian detective and Sherlock Holmes – alongside Jussi a rather hapless Hastings-cum-Watson (neither of whom had to taste a blend of blood spatter and the boss’s spit to confirm that indeed, it was clearly dried blood on the site), before announcing his latest deduction and pulling a body out of a swamp.
Opposing Goals
The local leaders are bent on proving that Hilda met her end by a bear, maybe to protect the calm, or possibly to shield a fellow elite. The clergyman is intent on proving otherwise, and the evidence so rapidly accumulates in his favour that once more the show’s credibility and the viewer’s patience get strained. In its finest moments, To Cook a Bear is reminiscent of the adaptation a few years ago of Sarah Perry’s The Essex Serpent, with its evocation of the competing allures and fears presented by science 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: “Females, choose the animal.”
The series streams on Disney+ now.
