A heated debate lately went viral on social media, after a user posed the question for females: which would you prefer be lost in the woods with a man or a bear? Similar to the most engaging thought experiments, it revealed wildly different worldviews and life encounters, highlighted divides among genders, and could easily cause an existential crisis if you thought about it extensively. Additionally, there came 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 that choice. This at minimum allowed the women who had been hesitating over their choice to decide with renewed assurance.
Dramatising the Scenario
To Cook a Bear skillfully brings to life this nifty small premise. The six-part drama is adapted from Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s 2018 book with the identical title (rendered in 2020 for English readers). It follows the tribulations of a pastor (the lead actor) and his household as they come to start a fresh religious post within Kengis, an isolated settlement in Sweden’s north, during the mid-19th century. In a place lacking many joys, not one of the locals especially warm to his strict stance on drinking and revelry, yet it is his defense of impoverished people – especially the native Sami population, from among whom comes the pastor’s adopted son the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in social justice and equality that sets him on a collision course against the Kengis local authorities.
The Opposing Forces
Quickly in cahoots against him are the lawman the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the fearsome mill owner Madam Sjödahl (the actress), observed initially dismissing a newly injured worker with minimal compensation as he remains babbling at the sight his crushed hand, and anyone else who benefit from a community who can be bought with some containers of liquor provided by the creepy shopkeeper the merchant Lindmark (the actor). However, to be fair, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes when itinerant painter the artist Beronius appears on the scene (the performer, providing a performance of rare discomfiting power). If they are – similar to the clergyman – only a little more than caricatures, they are at least potent archetypes.
Narrative Development
Once the foundations of tension sown, it is time to get down with the storyline. The maid from the doctor’s house, Hilda (the actress), accordingly goes missing in the forest. Indications of her flight and bear markings upon a trunk get discovered yet she remains nowhere to be seen. Gossip and anxieties regarding a human-devouring beast prowling the woodland circulate, but the pastor has another theory that he and Jussi embark to verify.
An Odd Beast
This Bear Drama is a slightly odd beast. It creates a fine sense of the bleakness that allows distrust and prejudice and dark myths thrive based on local folklore that bears might be dominated or possessed by the spirits of men. It avoids romanticise the hardscrabble life led by the villagers, where violence, be it from nature or people, lurks constantly on the edges, waiting to erupt. But the characters seldom evolve more than ciphers – or perhaps, as the struggles between justice and revenge, rationality and religion, good and wickedness intensify, emblematic figures within a moral tale – which stops the whole thing truly becoming immersive.
Tonal Inconsistencies
And then, exist the many stylistically clashing moments where the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and determine the maid’s destiny turns nearly laughable. He positions himself looking at shattered containers and strands of fur in hay barns like a combined Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – 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 agree that, yes, it was clearly dried blood on the site), prior to declaring his latest deduction and extracting a corpse out of a swamp.
Clashing Agendas
The village elite are bent on proving that Hilda was killed by a bear, maybe to preserve the calm, or possibly to shield a fellow elite. The clergyman is intent on establishing the opposite, and the evidence so rapidly accumulates in his favour that once more the show’s credibility and audience tolerance get strained. In its finest moments, To Cook a Bear is reminiscent of the TV version some years back of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the opposing attractions and terrors offered by rational thought and belief. In its low points, it’s more like Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Nevertheless, it appears to offer the response to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”
To Cook a Bear is on Disney+ currently.
