An heated debate recently spread widely on social media, after someone asked the question to women: would you rather be lost in a forest alongside a male or a bear? Like all the most engaging hypothetical scenarios, it revealed wildly different perspectives and experiences, illuminated divides between the sexes, and could easily cause a deep personal dilemma for anyone pondering on it for too long. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable coda in which some males took to the internet to tell females how foolish they had been for choosing the animal and proceeded to describe the punishments they merited for that choice. This at least enabled those females who were uncertain over their choice to make it with renewed assurance.
Dramatising the Scenario
To Cook a Bear effectively brings to life this nifty small premise. This six-episode drama is based on Scandinavian writer Mikael Niemi’s 2018 novel with the identical title (rendered two years later for English readers). It traces the struggles of a clergyman (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his household when they arrive to start a fresh religious post within Kengis, a remote settlement in Sweden’s north, in 1852. Within a community lacking many joys, none of the inhabitants especially appreciate his puritanical stance on alcohol and dancing, but it is his defense of the poor – especially the native Sami population, from which hails the pastor’s adopted son the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in social justice and equal rights that sets him in direct opposition with the Kengis powers that be.
The Opposing Forces
Quickly collaborating opposing him include the lawman Brahe (the performer), the intimidating factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (the actress), observed initially dismissing a recently mangled laborer with minimal compensation while he is still babbling at the sight his crushed hand, and all others who benefit from a populace easily swayed for a few bottles of liquor provided by the unsettling store owner the merchant Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness pales once itinerant painter the artist Beronius arrives on the scene (Simon J Berger, delivering an acting turn of exceptional discomfiting power). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – only a little more being stereotypes, they still serve as effective ones.
Plot Progression
With the seeds of tension sown, it is time to proceed with the storyline. The servant from the doctor’s house, the character Hilda (the actress), accordingly goes missing in the forest. Indications of her flight and animal scratches upon a trunk get discovered yet she remains completely absent. Gossip and anxieties of a man/maid-eating bear roaming the woodland spread, yet the clergyman has another theory which he and his ward set out to verify.
An Odd Beast
To Cook a Bear is a somewhat odd beast. It conjures a fine sense of the desolation that lets distrust and bias and grim legends thrive from the native legend that animals might be dominated or possessed by the souls of humans. It avoids idealising the tough existence led by the villagers, where brutality, whether that of the wild or mankind, always looms on the edges, waiting to erupt. But the characters seldom evolve beyond symbols – or maybe, while the conflicts between justice and vengeance, logic and religion, good and wickedness escalate, emblematic figures in a fable – preventing the whole thing truly coming to life.
Tonal Inconsistencies
Additionally, exist numerous tonally jarring moments in which the pastor’s ability to discover clues and discern Hilda’s fate turns almost risible. He positions himself observing shattered containers and strands of fur within storage sheds as a fusion of Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (none of whom had to taste a mixture of blood spatter and the boss’s spit to agree that indeed, it was clearly coagulated blood on the site), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and extracting a corpse from a bog.
Opposing Goals
The local leaders are bent on proving that the maid was killed by an animal, maybe to protect the peace, perhaps to protect a fellow elite. The clergyman is bent on establishing the opposite, and the evidence so rapidly accumulates supporting his view that again the drama’s plausibility and the viewer’s patience are tested. At its best, To Cook a Bear is reminiscent of the TV version a few years ago of the author’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the competing allures and terrors offered by science and religion. At its worst, it resembles a bear-themed police procedural. Still, it appears to provide the answer to that debated question: “Females, choose the animal.”
The series is on Disney+ now.
