An heated debate lately went viral across online platforms, following someone asked a query to women: which would you prefer find yourself stranded in a forest alongside a male or with a bear? Like all the most engaging thought experiments, it exposed wildly different worldviews and experiences, illuminated divides among genders, and could easily to induce an existential crisis for anyone pondering on it extensively. There was also the predictable follow-up in which men of a certain stripe came online to inform females how stupid they had been for choosing the bear and went on to limn the punishments they deserved for that choice. This at minimum allowed those females who were uncertain over their choice to decide with renewed assurance.
Portraying the Setup
To Cook a Bear effectively dramatises this nifty little setup. The six-part series is adapted from Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s 2018 book with the identical title (translated in 2020 for English readers). It traces the struggles of a pastor (the lead actor) and his family as they come to start a new ministry in Kengis, an isolated settlement in northern Sweden, in 1852. In a place lacking many joys, not one of the inhabitants especially warm to his puritanical approach to drinking and dancing, yet it is his defense of the poor – particularly the indigenous Sami, from which comes the preacher’s foster child Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his belief in social justice and equal rights that places him in direct opposition with the Kengis powers that be.
The Antagonists
Quickly in cahoots opposing him include the lawman the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating mill owner Madam Sjödahl (the actress), seen early on firing a newly injured laborer with minimal compensation as he remains babbling at the sight of his pulped hand, and all others who profit from a community who can be bought with some containers of liquor sold by the unsettling store owner the merchant Lindmark (the actor). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness pales when travelling artist Beronius arrives on the scene (Simon J Berger, providing a performance of rare unsettling intensity). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – only a little more than caricatures, they are at least effective ones.
Plot Progression
Once the foundations of conflict sown, it is time to proceed with the storyline. The maid from the doctor’s house, Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), accordingly goes missing from the woods. Signs of her escape and bear markings upon a trunk are found but she is nowhere to be seen. Rumours and anxieties regarding a human-devouring beast roaming the woods spread, but the pastor holds a different view which he and his ward set out to prove.
A Strange Creation
To Cook a Bear is a slightly peculiar show. It creates a strong impression of the desolation that lets distrust and bias and dark myths flourish based on local folklore that bears might be dominated or possessed by the souls of humans. And it doesn’t romanticise the tough existence led by the residents, where violence, whether that of nature or people, always looms at the periphery, waiting to erupt. But the characters seldom evolve more than ciphers – or maybe, while the conflicts amid fairness and revenge, logic and faith, good and evil escalate, emblematic figures in a fable – which stops the whole thing truly becoming immersive.
Stylistic Shifts
And then, there are the many stylistically clashing instances where the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and discern the maid’s destiny becomes almost risible. He stands observing broken milk pots and clumps of hair within storage sheds like a combined the Belgian detective the English sleuth – with Jussi a rather hapless assistant figure (neither of whom had to lick a blend of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to confirm that, yes, it was definitely coagulated blood on the site), before announcing his latest deduction and extracting a corpse from a bog.
Opposing Goals
The local leaders are bent on proving that Hilda met her end by a bear, perhaps to protect the peace, or possibly to shield a fellow elite. The clergyman is intent on establishing the opposite, and the proof so quickly accumulates supporting his view that again the drama’s plausibility and audience tolerance get strained. At its best, the series evokes memories of the adaptation some years back of the author’s The Essex Serpent, through its portrayal of the competing attractions and fears offered by rational thought and belief. In its low points, it’s more like a bear-themed police procedural. Nevertheless, it appears to offer the answer to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”
To Cook a Bear is on Disney+ currently.
