An intense discussion lately went viral on social media, following someone asked a query to women: which would you prefer find yourself stranded in a forest alongside a male or with a bear? Similar to the most engaging hypothetical scenarios, it revealed wildly different worldviews and experiences, illuminated chasms between the sexes, and was likely to induce a deep personal dilemma for anyone pondering about it for too long. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable coda where men of a certain stripe took to the internet to tell females how stupid they were to select the bear and went on to describe the consequences they deserved for it. This at least allowed those females who were uncertain about their decision to decide with a new confidence.
Portraying the Scenario
To Cook a Bear effectively dramatises this clever little setup. The six-part series is adapted from Scandinavian writer the novelist’s 2018 novel of the same name (rendered two years later for English readers). It follows the tribulations of a clergyman (the lead actor) and his household when they arrive to begin a new ministry within Kengis, a remote settlement in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. Within a community lacking many joys, not one of the inhabitants especially appreciate his strict approach to drinking and dancing, but it is his protection of the poor – particularly the native Sami population, from among whom comes the preacher’s adopted son the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his belief in societal fairness and equality that places him in direct opposition against the Kengis powers that be.
The Antagonists
Soon in cahoots opposing him are the sheriff the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the intimidating mill owner Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen initially dismissing a newly injured laborer with minimal compensation while he is still babbling at the sight his crushed hand, and all others who benefit from a community who can be bought for a few bottles of liquor sold by the creepy store owner Lindmark (the actor). However, to be fair, Lindmark’s creepiness pales once travelling artist Beronius appears in the story (Simon J Berger, providing an acting turn of rare discomfiting power). If they are – like the pastor himself – just slightly beyond than caricatures, 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 employed by the doctor, the character Hilda (the actress), duly goes missing from the woods. Indications of her escape and bear markings upon a trunk are found but she is nowhere to be seen. Gossip and anxieties of a man/maid-eating beast prowling the woodland spread, yet the clergyman has another theory that he and Jussi set out to prove.
A Strange Creation
To Cook a Bear is a somewhat peculiar show. It conjures a strong impression of the desolation that lets suspicion and prejudice and grim legends flourish from the native legend that animals might be dominated or possessed by the souls of humans. It avoids romanticise the hardscrabble life led by the residents, in which violence, be it from the wild or people, lurks constantly at the periphery, poised to explode. But the characters seldom evolve beyond symbols – or maybe, while the conflicts between justice and vengeance, rationality and religion, virtue and wickedness intensify, emblematic figures in a fable – which stops the whole thing truly becoming immersive.
Stylistic Shifts
Additionally, there are numerous stylistically clashing moments where the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and determine Hilda’s fate becomes almost risible. He stands looking at broken milk pots and clumps of hair in hay barns like a combined Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – with Jussi a rather hapless Hastings-cum-Watson (neither of whom had to taste a mixture of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to confirm that, yes, it was clearly coagulated blood at the crime scene), before announcing his latest deduction and pulling a corpse from a bog.
Opposing Goals
The local leaders are bent on demonstrating that the maid met her end by a bear, maybe to protect the peace, perhaps to shield a fellow elite. The pastor is intent on proving otherwise, and the proof so rapidly stacks up in his favour that once more the drama’s plausibility and the viewer’s patience get strained. In its finest moments, To Cook a Bear evokes memories of the adaptation some years back of the author’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the competing attractions and fears presented by rational thought and belief. In its low points, it’s more like a bear-themed police procedural. Still, it appears to provide the answer to that debated question: “Ladies, take the bear.”
The series streams on Disney+ currently.
