A heated discussion lately went viral across online platforms, following someone posed the question for females: would you rather be lost in a forest alongside a male or with a bear? Similar to the most engaging thought experiments, it exposed vastly opposing worldviews and experiences, illuminated divides among genders, and could easily cause a deep personal dilemma if you thought on it for too long. There was also the almost inevitable coda in which some males took to the internet to inform females how stupid they had been for choosing the bear and went on to describe the consequences they merited for it. This at least enabled those females who were uncertain about their decision to make it with renewed assurance.
Portraying the Scenario
To Cook a Bear skillfully dramatises this nifty small premise. This six-episode series is adapted on Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s 2018 book of the same name (rendered two years later for an English audience). It traces the struggles of a pastor (the lead actor) and his household when they arrive to begin a fresh religious post within Kengis, a remote settlement in Sweden’s north, during the mid-19th century. In a place lacking many joys, not one of the inhabitants particularly appreciate his puritanical stance on alcohol and revelry, but it is his protection of impoverished people – particularly the native Sami population, from among whom comes the pastor’s adopted son the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in societal fairness and equality that sets him in direct opposition against the Kengis local authorities.
The Antagonists
Quickly in cahoots opposing him are the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the fearsome factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (the actress), seen early on dismissing a newly injured worker with minimal compensation while he is still gibbering upon seeing of his pulped hand, and anyone else who benefit from a community who can be bought for a few bottles of liquor sold by the unsettling shopkeeper the merchant Lindmark (the actor). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes when itinerant painter the artist Beronius appears on the scene (Simon J Berger, delivering a performance of exceptional discomfiting power). While they remain – like the pastor himself – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, they are at least effective ones.
Narrative Development
With the seeds of conflict planted, the moment arrives to get down with the storyline. The maid from the doctor’s house, Hilda (the actress), duly goes missing in the forest. Indications of her flight and bear markings upon a trunk get discovered but she is completely absent. Rumours and anxieties of a man/maid-eating beast roaming the woods circulate, but the pastor has another theory which he and his ward embark to verify.
A Strange Creation
To Cook a Bear is a slightly peculiar show. It conjures a strong impression of the desolation that lets distrust and bias and dark myths flourish from the native legend that animals might be dominated or inhabited by the spirits of men. And it doesn’t idealising the hardscrabble life led by the villagers, in which brutality, whether that of nature or mankind, lurks constantly at the periphery, waiting to erupt. But the characters seldom evolve beyond symbols – or perhaps, as the struggles amid fairness and vengeance, logic and faith, good and evil intensify, emblematic figures in a fable – preventing the whole thing fully coming to life.
Tonal Inconsistencies
Additionally, exist numerous stylistically clashing instances where the clergyman’s skill to discover clues and discern the maid’s destiny becomes nearly laughable. He stands looking at shattered containers and strands of fur within storage sheds as a fusion of Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (none of whom were required to taste a mixture of blood spatter and the boss’s spit to confirm that indeed, it was definitely coagulated blood on the site), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and pulling a body from a bog.
Clashing Agendas
The village elite are bent on proving that the maid was killed by an animal, perhaps to preserve the calm, perhaps to shield one of their own. The clergyman is intent on proving otherwise, and the proof so rapidly stacks up in his favour that again the show’s credibility and audience tolerance are tested. At its best, To Cook a Bear is reminiscent of the TV version some years back of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the opposing attractions and terrors presented by rational thought and religion. In its low points, it resembles a bear-themed police procedural. Nevertheless, it appears to provide the response to that debated question: “Ladies, take the bear.”
To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ now.
