An intense discussion recently went viral across online platforms, following someone posed a query for females: would you rather find yourself stranded in the woods with a man or with a bear? Like all the best thought experiments, it revealed vastly opposing worldviews and experiences, highlighted chasms among genders, and could easily to induce an existential crisis if you thought about it extensively. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable follow-up where some males took to the internet to inform females how foolish they were to select the bear and went on to describe the consequences they merited for it. This at minimum allowed those females who were uncertain about their decision to decide with a new confidence.
Portraying the Setup
To Cook a Bear skillfully dramatises this clever little setup. This six-episode series is adapted from Swedish author the novelist’s 2018 novel with the identical title (translated two years later for an English audience). It follows the struggles of a clergyman (the lead actor) and his household when they arrive to begin a fresh religious post in Kengis, an isolated village in Sweden’s north, in 1852. Within a community lacking many joys, none of the inhabitants particularly appreciate his puritanical stance on alcohol and dancing, but it is his defense of the poor – especially the native Sami population, from which comes the preacher’s adopted son the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in social justice and equality that sets him in direct opposition against the Kengis powers that be.
The Opposing Forces
Quickly in cahoots against him are the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the fearsome factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (the actress), observed initially firing a recently mangled worker with a month’s pay while he is still gibbering upon seeing his crushed hand, and all others who benefit from a community easily swayed for a few bottles of the whisky provided by the creepy store owner the merchant Lindmark (the actor). However, to be fair, Lindmark’s creepiness pales once itinerant painter the artist Beronius appears on the scene (Simon J Berger, providing an acting turn of rare unsettling intensity). If they are – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, they are at least effective ones.
Plot Progression
Once the foundations of tension sown, it is time to get down to narrative business. The maid employed by the doctor, Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), accordingly goes missing from the woods. Indications of her flight and bear markings upon a trunk are found but she is nowhere to be seen. Gossip and fears regarding a human-devouring beast roaming the woodland circulate, yet the clergyman has another theory that he and Jussi embark to verify.
An Odd Beast
To Cook a Bear is a slightly odd beast. It conjures a strong impression of the bleakness that allows suspicion and prejudice and grim legends thrive from the native legend that animals can be controlled or inhabited by the spirits of humans. It avoids idealising the tough existence experienced by the residents, in which brutality, whether that of nature or mankind, lurks constantly at the periphery, poised to explode. But the characters seldom evolve beyond symbols – or perhaps, while the conflicts amid fairness and vengeance, logic and faith, virtue and evil escalate, emblematic figures in a fable – which stops the entire production fully coming to life.
Stylistic Shifts
And then, exist numerous tonally jarring moments where the pastor’s ability to discover clues and discern the maid’s destiny becomes nearly laughable. He stands looking at shattered containers and strands of fur within storage sheds like a combined the Belgian detective and Sherlock Holmes – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (neither of whom had to taste a mixture of blood droplets and saliva from his superior to confirm that, yes, it was clearly dried blood at the crime scene), before announcing his newest conclusion and pulling a corpse out of a swamp.
Opposing Goals
The local leaders are determined demonstrating that Hilda met her end by a bear, maybe to protect the peace, or possibly to protect one of their own. The pastor is bent on establishing the opposite, and the evidence so quickly accumulates in his favour that again the show’s credibility and the viewer’s patience are tested. At its best, 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 competing allures and fears offered by rational thought and religion. At its worst, it’s more like a bear-themed police procedural. Still, it does seem to provide the answer to that debated question: “Ladies, take the bear.”
The series streams on Disney+ currently.
