An intense debate recently spread widely on social media, following someone posed a query to women: which would you prefer find yourself stranded in a forest with a man or with a bear? Like all the most engaging thought experiments, it revealed vastly opposing worldviews and life encounters, highlighted divides among genders, and was likely cause a deep personal dilemma for anyone pondering on it extensively. There was also the predictable follow-up where men of a certain stripe came online to tell females how stupid they had been for choosing the bear and went on to limn the punishments they deserved for it. This at least allowed the women who were uncertain about their decision to make it with a new confidence.
Dramatising the Scenario
To Cook a Bear effectively brings to life this clever little setup. This six-episode series is adapted from Swedish author the novelist’s 2018 book of the same name (translated in 2020 for English readers). It follows the struggles of a pastor (the lead actor) and his family when they arrive to begin a fresh religious post in Kengis, an isolated village in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. Within a community with few pleasures, not one of the locals particularly appreciate his puritanical stance on alcohol and revelry, but it is his defense of the poor – particularly the native Sami population, from which comes the pastor’s foster child Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his belief in social justice and equal rights that sets him in direct opposition with the Kengis local authorities.
The Opposing Forces
Quickly in cahoots against him include the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the fearsome mill owner Madam Sjödahl (the actress), seen initially dismissing a recently mangled laborer with minimal compensation while he is still gibbering at the sight of his pulped hand, and all others who benefit from a community easily swayed with some containers of liquor sold by the creepy store owner the merchant Lindmark (the actor). Although, to be fair, Lindmark’s eeriness pales when travelling artist the artist Beronius arrives in the story (Simon J Berger, delivering a performance of exceptional unsettling intensity). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – only a little more being stereotypes, they are at least effective ones.
Narrative Development
With the seeds of conflict planted, it is time to proceed with the storyline. The maid from the doctor’s house, the character Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), accordingly vanishes from the woods. Signs of her escape and animal scratches on a tree are found yet she remains completely absent. Gossip and fears regarding a human-devouring bear roaming the woodland circulate, yet the clergyman has another theory which he and his ward embark to prove.
An Odd Beast
This Bear Drama is a slightly peculiar show. It conjures a strong impression of the bleakness that allows distrust and prejudice and grim legends flourish from the native legend that animals might be dominated or possessed by the souls of men. It avoids romanticise the hardscrabble life experienced by the residents, where violence, whether that of nature or mankind, always looms at the periphery, poised to explode. Yet the personas seldom evolve beyond symbols – or perhaps, as the struggles amid fairness and revenge, rationality and religion, virtue and wickedness escalate, representative characters within a moral tale – preventing the whole thing truly becoming immersive.
Stylistic Shifts
And then, there are the many stylistically clashing moments where the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and discern Hilda’s fate becomes nearly laughable. He stands looking at shattered containers and strands of fur in hay barns like a combined Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – with Jussi a rather hapless Hastings-cum-Watson (neither of whom had to lick a mixture of blood spatter and the boss’s spit to confirm that, yes, it was definitely coagulated blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his latest deduction and extracting a corpse out of a swamp.
Clashing Agendas
The local leaders are bent on demonstrating that the maid met her end by a bear, maybe to protect the peace, or possibly to shield a fellow elite. The pastor is bent on proving the opposite, and the proof so rapidly stacks up supporting his view that again the show’s credibility and audience tolerance get strained. At its best, To Cook a Bear is reminiscent of the TV version a few years ago of the author’s The Essex Serpent, with its evocation of the competing attractions and fears presented by rational thought and religion. At its worst, it’s more like a bear-themed police procedural. Nevertheless, it does seem to provide the response to that debated question: “Females, choose the animal.”
To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ now.
