A heated debate recently went viral on social media, following someone asked the question for females: which would you prefer find yourself stranded in a forest with a man or a bear? Like all the best hypothetical scenarios, it exposed vastly opposing worldviews and life encounters, highlighted divides between the sexes, and was likely to induce a deep personal dilemma if you thought about it extensively. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable coda where some males took to the internet to inform women how stupid they were for choosing the animal and went on to limn the consequences they merited for that choice. This at least enabled the women who had been hesitating over their choice to decide with a new confidence.
Portraying the Scenario
To Cook a Bear skillfully dramatises this nifty little setup. The six-part drama is adapted on Scandinavian writer Mikael Niemi’s 2018 book of the same name (translated in 2020 for an English audience). It follows the tribulations of a pastor (the lead actor) and his household as they come to begin a new ministry within Kengis, an isolated village in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. In a place lacking many joys, not one of the inhabitants especially warm to his strict approach to drinking and revelry, but it is his protection of impoverished people – especially the native Sami population, from among whom hails the pastor’s foster child Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his conviction in social justice and equality that places him on a collision course against the Kengis local authorities.
The Opposing Forces
Quickly collaborating against him are the lawman Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the fearsome factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (the actress), observed early on firing a newly injured worker with minimal compensation while he is still gibbering at the sight his crushed hand, and all others who benefit from a community who can be bought with some containers of the whisky sold by the creepy shopkeeper Lindmark (the actor). However, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness pales once itinerant painter the artist Beronius arrives on the scene (the performer, delivering an acting turn of rare discomfiting power). If they are – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond than caricatures, they are at least effective ones.
Narrative Development
With the seeds of conflict planted, the moment arrives to proceed with the storyline. The maid from the doctor’s house, Hilda (the actress), accordingly goes missing from the woods. Signs of her escape and bear markings upon a trunk get discovered but she is nowhere to be seen. Gossip and fears regarding a human-devouring beast roaming the woodland spread, yet the clergyman holds a different view which he and his ward set out to prove.
A Strange Creation
To Cook a Bear is a somewhat odd beast. It creates a fine sense of the bleakness that lets distrust and prejudice and dark myths thrive from the native legend that animals might be dominated or possessed by the spirits of men. It avoids idealising the tough existence led by the residents, in which brutality, be it from the wild or mankind, lurks constantly on the edges, poised to explode. Yet the personas seldom evolve beyond symbols – or perhaps, while the conflicts amid fairness and revenge, logic and faith, good and evil escalate, representative characters within a moral tale – preventing the whole thing truly coming to life.
Stylistic Shifts
Additionally, exist the many tonally jarring instances where the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and discern the maid’s destiny becomes almost risible. He positions himself looking at shattered containers and strands of fur in hay barns as a fusion of the Belgian detective and Sherlock Holmes – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (neither of whom had to lick a mixture of blood spatter and the boss’s spit to agree that indeed, it was clearly coagulated blood on the site), before announcing his newest conclusion and pulling a corpse out of a swamp.
Opposing Goals
The local leaders are determined proving that Hilda was killed by a bear, maybe to preserve the peace, perhaps to protect one of their own. The clergyman is bent on establishing otherwise, and the evidence so rapidly accumulates supporting his view that again the show’s credibility and the viewer’s patience are tested. In its finest moments, the series is reminiscent of the TV version some years back of the author’s The Essex Serpent, through its portrayal of the competing allures and terrors presented by science and belief. In its low points, it’s more like a bear-themed police procedural. Still, it does seem to offer the answer to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”
To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ currently.
