A heated discussion lately went viral across online platforms, after a user posed a query to women: which would you prefer be lost in a forest alongside a male or with a bear? Similar to the most engaging hypothetical scenarios, it exposed wildly different worldviews and experiences, illuminated divides between the sexes, and was likely cause an existential crisis if you thought on it extensively. Additionally, there came the predictable coda where men of a certain stripe came online to tell women how stupid they had been for choosing the bear and proceeded to limn the punishments they merited for it. This at minimum allowed those females who were uncertain about their decision to make it with a new confidence.
Dramatising the Scenario
To Cook a Bear effectively brings to life this clever little setup. This six-episode series is based from Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s 2018 novel of the same name (translated in 2020 for English readers). It follows the struggles of a pastor (the lead actor) and his household when they arrive to begin a new ministry in Kengis, an isolated settlement in Sweden’s north, in 1852. Within a community lacking many joys, not one of the inhabitants particularly warm to his puritanical stance on drinking and dancing, yet it is his defense of impoverished people – especially the indigenous Sami, from among whom hails the pastor’s adopted son the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his conviction in societal fairness and equal rights that places him in direct opposition against the Kengis powers that be.
The Antagonists
Soon in cahoots opposing him include the lawman the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the fearsome mill owner the matron Sjödahl (the actress), seen early on dismissing a newly injured worker with minimal compensation as he remains gibbering at the sight his crushed hand, and all others who benefit from a populace easily swayed with some containers of the whisky provided by the unsettling shopkeeper the merchant Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes once itinerant painter the artist Beronius arrives on the scene (Simon J Berger, delivering a performance of rare unsettling intensity). If they are – similar to the clergyman – only a little more than caricatures, they still serve as potent archetypes.
Narrative Development
With the seeds of conflict planted, the moment arrives to get down with the storyline. The maid employed by the doctor, the character Hilda (the actress), accordingly goes missing from the woods. Signs of her flight and animal scratches on a tree are found but she is nowhere to be seen. Gossip and anxieties of a man/maid-eating bear roaming the woods spread, but the pastor holds a different view that he and Jussi set out to prove.
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 dark myths thrive from the native legend that animals might be dominated or inhabited by the spirits of men. And it doesn’t idealising the tough existence experienced by the residents, where brutality, whether that of nature or mankind, always looms at the periphery, poised to explode. Yet the personas seldom evolve beyond symbols – or perhaps, as the struggles amid fairness and revenge, rationality and faith, virtue and wickedness escalate, representative characters within a moral tale – preventing the entire production fully coming to life.
Tonal Inconsistencies
And then, exist the many tonally jarring moments where the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and discern the maid’s destiny becomes nearly laughable. He stands looking at shattered containers and clumps of hair in hay barns as a fusion of the Belgian detective and Sherlock Holmes – with Jussi a rather hapless assistant figure (neither of whom had to lick a mixture of blood droplets and saliva from his superior to confirm that indeed, it was clearly dried blood on the site), before announcing his latest deduction and pulling a body out of a swamp.
Opposing Goals
The village elite are bent on demonstrating that the maid met her end by an animal, perhaps to preserve the peace, or possibly to shield one of their own. The pastor is intent on establishing otherwise, and the evidence so quickly stacks up supporting his view that once more the drama’s plausibility and audience tolerance are tested. 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 opposing allures and terrors offered by rational thought and religion. In its low points, it’s more like Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it appears to offer the response to that debated question: “Ladies, take the bear.”
To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ now.
