An heated debate lately went viral across online platforms, after someone asked the question to women: would you rather be lost in a forest alongside a male or with a bear? Like all the best hypothetical scenarios, it exposed wildly different perspectives and experiences, illuminated chasms among genders, and was likely to induce an existential crisis for anyone pondering about it for too long. Additionally, there came the predictable follow-up where men of a certain stripe took to the internet to tell females how stupid they were for choosing the bear and went on to describe the punishments they merited for that choice. This at least allowed those females 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 nifty small premise. This six-episode drama is based from Scandinavian writer Mikael Niemi’s 2018 novel of the same name (rendered two years later for English readers). It traces the tribulations of a pastor (the lead actor) and his household as they come to start a new ministry in Kengis, a remote village in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. Within a community lacking many joys, none of the inhabitants especially appreciate his strict stance on drinking and revelry, but it is his protection of the poor – particularly the indigenous Sami, from which hails the preacher’s foster child the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his conviction in social justice and equality that places him in direct opposition against the Kengis local authorities.
The Opposing Forces
Soon in cahoots opposing him include the lawman Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating mill owner the matron Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed early on firing a newly injured worker with a month’s pay while he is still gibbering at the sight his crushed hand, and all others who profit from a populace who can be bought for a few bottles of liquor provided by the creepy shopkeeper Lindmark (the actor). Although, to be fair, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes once travelling artist the artist Beronius arrives on the scene (the performer, delivering an acting turn of rare discomfiting power). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, they are at least effective ones.
Narrative Development
With the seeds of tension sown, the moment arrives to proceed with the storyline. The servant employed by the doctor, the character Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), accordingly goes missing from the woods. Signs of her escape and animal scratches on a tree get discovered but she is completely absent. Gossip and anxieties of a man/maid-eating beast prowling the woods circulate, yet the clergyman holds a different view that he and Jussi embark to verify.
A Strange Creation
To Cook a Bear is a slightly peculiar show. It creates a fine sense of the desolation that allows distrust and prejudice and grim legends flourish from the native legend that animals might be dominated or inhabited by the souls of humans. And it doesn’t idealising the tough existence experienced by the residents, in which violence, be it from the wild or mankind, lurks constantly on the edges, poised to explode. But the characters rarely become more than ciphers – or perhaps, as the struggles amid fairness and revenge, logic and religion, virtue and wickedness escalate, representative characters within a moral tale – which stops the entire production truly coming to life.
Tonal Inconsistencies
And then, there are the many tonally jarring moments in which the clergyman’s skill to discover clues and determine the maid’s destiny turns almost risible. He stands looking at shattered containers and strands of fur within storage sheds like a combined Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (neither of whom were required to taste a mixture of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to agree that, yes, it was definitely coagulated blood on the site), prior to declaring his latest deduction and pulling a body out of a swamp.
Opposing Goals
The local leaders are bent on demonstrating that Hilda met her end by an animal, perhaps to preserve the calm, or possibly to shield a fellow elite. The clergyman is bent on proving the opposite, and the proof so quickly accumulates supporting his view that again the drama’s plausibility and the viewer’s patience get strained. At its best, To Cook a Bear evokes memories of the adaptation a few years ago of Sarah Perry’s The Essex Serpent, through its portrayal of the opposing allures and fears offered by science and religion. In its low points, it resembles a bear-themed police procedural. Still, it appears to provide the response to that debated question: “Females, choose the animal.”
The series is on Disney+ now.
