An intense debate lately spread widely on social media, following a user asked a query for females: which would you prefer be lost in a forest alongside a male or a bear? Similar to the best hypothetical scenarios, it exposed vastly opposing perspectives and experiences, highlighted divides between the sexes, and could easily to induce a deep personal dilemma for anyone pondering on it extensively. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable follow-up where men of a certain stripe came online to tell women how foolish they had been to select the animal and went on to limn the consequences they deserved for it. This at minimum enabled the women who had been hesitating about their decision to decide with a new confidence.
Portraying the Scenario
To Cook a Bear skillfully brings to life this nifty little setup. This six-episode series is based from Scandinavian writer Mikael Niemi’s 2018 book of the same name (rendered two years later for English readers). It traces the struggles of a clergyman (the lead actor) and his household as they come to begin a fresh religious post in Kengis, a remote village in Sweden’s north, in 1852. In a place with few pleasures, none of the inhabitants particularly warm to his strict stance on alcohol and dancing, yet it is his defense of impoverished people – particularly the native Sami population, from which comes the preacher’s foster child the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his conviction in social justice and equal rights that sets him in direct opposition against the Kengis local authorities.
The Opposing Forces
Quickly collaborating opposing him are the sheriff the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed early on firing a recently mangled worker with a month’s pay while he is still gibbering 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 shopkeeper Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness pales once itinerant painter Beronius appears on the scene (the performer, delivering a performance of rare discomfiting power). If they are – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond than caricatures, they are at least effective ones.
Plot Progression
With the seeds of tension planted, the moment arrives to get down to narrative business. The maid from the doctor’s house, Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), duly vanishes from the woods. Signs of her escape and bear markings upon a trunk are found but she is nowhere to be seen. Gossip and fears of a man/maid-eating bear prowling the woodland circulate, but the pastor has another theory which he and his ward set out to prove.
An Odd Beast
This Bear Drama is a somewhat odd beast. It creates a fine sense of the desolation that lets distrust and bias and dark myths thrive based on local folklore that animals can be controlled or inhabited by the souls of humans. And it doesn’t romanticise the hardscrabble life experienced by the villagers, where violence, be it from the wild or people, always looms on the edges, poised to explode. Yet the personas seldom evolve more than ciphers – or perhaps, as the struggles between justice and vengeance, rationality and faith, good and evil intensify, emblematic figures within a moral tale – which stops the whole thing truly becoming immersive.
Stylistic Shifts
Additionally, there are the many tonally jarring instances where the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and discern the maid’s destiny turns nearly laughable. He stands looking at broken milk pots and clumps of hair within storage sheds as a fusion of Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (neither of whom were required to lick a blend of blood droplets and saliva from his superior to confirm that indeed, it was clearly dried blood at the crime scene), before announcing his newest conclusion and extracting a body from a bog.
Clashing Agendas
The local leaders are determined demonstrating that the maid met her end by a bear, perhaps to protect the calm, or possibly to protect one of their own. The clergyman is intent on establishing otherwise, and the proof so quickly accumulates supporting his view that once more the show’s credibility and audience tolerance get strained. At its best, To Cook a Bear is reminiscent of the adaptation some years back of Sarah Perry’s The Essex Serpent, through its portrayal of the competing allures and fears presented by rational thought and belief. In its low points, it resembles a bear-themed police procedural. Still, it appears to offer the response to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”
To Cook a Bear is on Disney+ currently.
