An intense debate lately went viral on social media, after someone posed a query to women: would you rather find yourself stranded in the woods alongside a male or a bear? Similar to the best thought experiments, it revealed wildly different perspectives and experiences, illuminated divides between the sexes, and was likely to induce an existential crisis if you thought on it extensively. Additionally, there came the predictable follow-up where some males took to the internet to tell women how stupid they had been for choosing the bear and proceeded to describe the punishments they merited for it. This at minimum allowed the women who were uncertain over their choice to decide with a new confidence.
Dramatising the Scenario
To Cook a Bear effectively brings to life this clever little setup. The six-part drama is adapted from Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s 2018 novel of the same name (translated two years later for English readers). It traces the struggles of a clergyman (the lead actor) and his family as they come to begin a new ministry in Kengis, an isolated village in Sweden’s north, in 1852. In a place with few pleasures, not one of the inhabitants particularly appreciate his puritanical stance on drinking and revelry, yet it is his defense of impoverished people – especially the indigenous Sami, from which comes the preacher’s adopted son Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in social justice and equality that sets him on a collision course with the Kengis powers that be.
The Opposing Forces
Soon collaborating opposing him include the lawman Brahe (the performer), the fearsome factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed early on dismissing a recently mangled worker with minimal compensation while he is still babbling upon seeing his crushed hand, and all others who profit from a populace who can be bought with some containers of liquor provided by the creepy shopkeeper the merchant Lindmark (the actor). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes once travelling artist Beronius arrives in the story (the performer, providing a performance of exceptional unsettling intensity). While they remain – like the pastor himself – just slightly beyond than caricatures, they are at least potent archetypes.
Narrative Development
With the seeds of conflict sown, the moment arrives to get down with the storyline. The servant from the doctor’s house, Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), accordingly vanishes from the woods. Signs of her escape and bear markings on a tree get discovered but she is completely absent. Rumours and anxieties regarding a human-devouring bear roaming the woodland circulate, yet the clergyman has another theory that he and Jussi embark to verify.
A Strange Creation
To Cook a Bear is a slightly peculiar show. It conjures a fine sense of the bleakness that allows distrust and prejudice and dark myths thrive from the native legend that bears can be controlled or inhabited by the souls of humans. And it doesn’t idealising the tough existence led by the villagers, in which violence, be it from nature or mankind, lurks constantly on the edges, poised to explode. Yet the personas rarely become more than ciphers – or perhaps, as the struggles amid fairness and vengeance, logic and faith, virtue and evil intensify, representative characters in a fable – which stops the entire production fully becoming immersive.
Tonal Inconsistencies
And then, there are numerous tonally jarring moments in which the clergyman’s skill to discover clues and determine Hilda’s fate becomes nearly laughable. He stands looking at broken milk pots and strands of fur within storage sheds like a combined Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – alongside Jussi a rather hapless Hastings-cum-Watson (neither of whom had to taste a blend of blood droplets and the boss’s spit to agree that indeed, it was clearly dried blood on the site), prior to declaring his latest deduction and pulling a corpse out of a swamp.
Opposing Goals
The local leaders are determined proving that Hilda was killed by an animal, maybe to preserve the peace, perhaps to shield one of their own. The clergyman is intent on proving otherwise, and the evidence so quickly stacks up supporting his view that again the show’s credibility and the viewer’s patience are tested. At its best, To Cook a Bear evokes memories of the adaptation some years back of the author’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the competing attractions and fears offered by science and belief. In its low points, it’s more like a bear-themed police procedural. Nevertheless, it appears to provide the response to the earlier query: “Females, choose the animal.”
To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ now.
