A heated discussion recently went viral on social media, following someone posed the question to women: would you rather be lost in a forest alongside a male or a bear? Similar to the best thought experiments, it exposed vastly opposing worldviews and life encounters, illuminated chasms among genders, and could easily to induce a deep personal dilemma if you thought on it for too long. There was also the almost inevitable coda where some males took to the internet to inform females how stupid they were for choosing the bear and went on to limn the consequences they merited for that choice. This at minimum allowed the women who were uncertain over their choice to decide with renewed assurance.
Portraying the Scenario
To Cook a Bear effectively dramatises this clever little setup. The six-part drama is adapted from Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s 2018 book with the identical title (rendered two years later for English readers). It follows the tribulations of a pastor (the lead actor) and his family as they come to begin a fresh religious post in Kengis, a remote village in Sweden’s north, during the mid-19th century. In a place lacking many joys, none of the locals particularly warm to his strict approach to drinking and dancing, but it is his defense of impoverished people – especially the indigenous Sami, from which hails the pastor’s adopted son Jussi (the young actor) – and his conviction in social justice and equality that places him on a collision course against the Kengis powers that be.
The Opposing Forces
Quickly in cahoots against him include the lawman the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the fearsome factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (the actress), seen early on firing a recently mangled worker with a month’s pay while he is still babbling at the sight of his pulped hand, and all others who profit from a community easily swayed with some containers of the whisky provided by the creepy store owner the merchant Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). However, to be fair, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes once itinerant painter the artist Beronius appears in the story (Simon J Berger, delivering an acting turn of rare discomfiting power). If they are – like the pastor himself – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, they are at least effective ones.
Plot Progression
With the seeds of tension planted, it is time to get down with the storyline. The maid employed by the doctor, Hilda (the actress), accordingly vanishes from the woods. Signs of her escape and bear markings on a tree are found but she is completely absent. Gossip and fears of a man/maid-eating bear prowling the woodland circulate, yet the clergyman holds a different view which he and his ward embark to prove.
An Odd Beast
To Cook a Bear is a somewhat odd beast. It creates a strong impression of the desolation that lets distrust and bias and grim legends flourish from the native legend that bears might be dominated or possessed by the spirits of humans. And it doesn’t idealising the tough existence experienced by the residents, in which violence, be it from nature or mankind, lurks constantly on the edges, waiting to erupt. But the characters seldom evolve more than ciphers – or maybe, while the conflicts amid fairness and vengeance, logic and religion, good and evil intensify, emblematic figures within a moral tale – which stops the entire production truly coming to life.
Stylistic Shifts
And then, exist numerous stylistically clashing instances where the pastor’s ability to discover clues and determine the maid’s destiny turns nearly laughable. He stands observing shattered containers and clumps of hair within storage sheds like a combined Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – alongside Jussi a rather hapless Hastings-cum-Watson (none of whom were required to lick a mixture of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to confirm that indeed, it was definitely coagulated blood on the site), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and pulling a corpse from a bog.
Clashing Agendas
The local leaders are bent on demonstrating that the maid met her end by an animal, maybe to preserve the calm, or possibly to protect one of their own. The clergyman is intent on proving the opposite, and the proof so rapidly stacks up 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 some years back of the author’s The Essex Serpent, with its evocation of the competing attractions and fears offered by rational thought and belief. At its worst, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Nevertheless, it appears to offer the answer to that debated question: “Females, choose the animal.”
The series streams on Disney+ currently.
