An intense discussion recently went viral across online platforms, following someone asked a query for females: would you rather be lost in the woods alongside a male or a bear? Like all the best thought experiments, it exposed wildly different perspectives and experiences, illuminated divides between the sexes, and could easily cause a deep personal dilemma if you thought about it for too long. There was also the almost inevitable follow-up in which some males took to the internet to tell women how stupid they were to select the animal and went on to describe the punishments they deserved for it. This at minimum enabled the women who were uncertain about their decision to make it with renewed assurance.
Portraying the Scenario
To Cook a Bear effectively dramatises this nifty little setup. The six-part drama is adapted from Scandinavian writer Mikael Niemi’s 2018 novel with the identical title (translated in 2020 for an English audience). It traces the tribulations of a clergyman (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his family as they come to start a fresh religious post within Kengis, an isolated village in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. In a place lacking many joys, not one of the locals especially appreciate his strict stance on alcohol and dancing, yet it is his defense of impoverished people – especially the indigenous Sami, from among whom hails the preacher’s foster child the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his conviction in social justice and equal rights that sets him on a collision course with the Kengis local authorities.
The Opposing Forces
Soon in cahoots against him include the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (the actress), observed early on firing a recently mangled laborer with minimal compensation while he is still gibbering upon seeing of his pulped hand, and anyone else who profit from a community who can be bought for a few bottles of liquor sold by the creepy store owner the merchant Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). However, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes once travelling artist the artist Beronius appears on the scene (Simon J Berger, delivering an acting turn of exceptional discomfiting power). While they remain – like the pastor himself – only a little more being stereotypes, they still serve as potent archetypes.
Plot Progression
With the seeds of tension planted, the moment arrives to get down with the storyline. The maid employed by the doctor, the character Hilda (the actress), duly vanishes in the forest. Indications of her escape and animal scratches on a tree get discovered yet she remains nowhere to be seen. Rumours and anxieties regarding a human-devouring bear roaming the woods circulate, but the pastor has another theory which he and his ward embark to prove.
An Odd Beast
This Bear Drama is a slightly peculiar show. It creates a fine sense of the bleakness that allows distrust and prejudice and dark myths flourish from the native legend that animals might be dominated or inhabited by the souls of men. And it doesn’t idealising the tough existence experienced by the residents, in which violence, be it from the wild or mankind, lurks constantly at the periphery, waiting to erupt. But the characters seldom evolve beyond symbols – or perhaps, while the conflicts amid fairness and vengeance, rationality and faith, virtue and wickedness escalate, representative characters within a moral tale – preventing the whole thing fully coming to life.
Stylistic Shifts
Additionally, there are the many stylistically clashing instances where the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and determine Hilda’s fate becomes nearly laughable. He stands observing shattered containers and clumps of hair within storage sheds as a fusion of Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (neither of whom were required to taste a mixture of blood droplets and the boss’s spit to confirm that, yes, it was definitely coagulated blood at the crime scene), before announcing his newest conclusion and extracting a body out of a swamp.
Opposing Goals
The local leaders are bent on proving that Hilda was killed by a bear, maybe to preserve the peace, perhaps to shield a fellow elite. The pastor is bent on establishing otherwise, and the evidence so quickly accumulates supporting his view that once more the show’s credibility and the viewer’s patience are tested. In its finest moments, To Cook a Bear is reminiscent of the TV version some years back of Sarah Perry’s The Essex Serpent, with its evocation of the opposing allures and terrors presented by rational thought and belief. In its low points, it’s more like Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it does seem to offer the answer to that debated question: “Females, choose the animal.”
To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ currently.
