An heated debate lately went viral on social media, following a user asked a query for females: which would you prefer find yourself stranded in the woods alongside a male or a bear? Like all the most engaging thought experiments, it revealed wildly different worldviews and experiences, illuminated chasms between the sexes, and was likely cause a deep personal dilemma for anyone pondering about it extensively. There was also the almost inevitable coda where men of a certain stripe took to the internet to tell women how foolish they had been for choosing the animal and went on to limn the consequences they merited for it. This at minimum allowed the women who were uncertain about their decision to make it with renewed assurance.
Portraying the Scenario
To Cook a Bear effectively dramatises this clever little setup. The six-part series is adapted from Swedish author the novelist’s 2018 book with the identical title (rendered in 2020 for an English audience). It traces the tribulations of a pastor (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his household when they arrive to start a new ministry in Kengis, an isolated village in Sweden’s north, in 1852. Within a community with few pleasures, not one of the inhabitants particularly appreciate his strict approach to drinking and dancing, but it is his defense of impoverished people – especially the native Sami population, from which hails the pastor’s adopted son the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his conviction in societal fairness and equality that sets him in direct opposition against the Kengis local authorities.
The Antagonists
Soon collaborating opposing him are the lawman the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the intimidating factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed early on firing a recently mangled worker with a month’s pay as he remains gibbering at the sight of his pulped hand, and all others 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 when travelling artist the artist Beronius appears in the story (the performer, delivering an acting turn of exceptional discomfiting power). If they are – similar to the clergyman – only a little more than caricatures, they are at least effective ones.
Narrative Development
Once the foundations of conflict planted, it is time to get down to narrative business. The maid from the doctor’s house, the character Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), duly vanishes from the woods. Signs of her escape and animal scratches upon a trunk are found yet she remains nowhere to be seen. Rumours and fears regarding a human-devouring bear roaming the woodland spread, yet the clergyman has another theory that he and Jussi set out to verify.
A Strange Creation
To Cook a Bear is a slightly odd beast. It creates a strong impression of the desolation that allows suspicion and bias and dark myths thrive from the native legend that animals can be controlled or inhabited by the spirits of humans. It avoids idealising the tough existence experienced by the villagers, where violence, be it from the wild or people, lurks constantly at the periphery, waiting to erupt. Yet the personas rarely become beyond symbols – or maybe, as the struggles amid fairness and revenge, logic and religion, good and wickedness escalate, emblematic figures in a fable – which stops the whole thing truly coming to life.
Tonal Inconsistencies
And then, exist the many tonally jarring instances in which the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and discern the maid’s destiny becomes nearly laughable. He stands looking at broken milk pots and strands of fur within storage sheds like a combined Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (none of whom had to taste a mixture of blood droplets and the boss’s spit to confirm that, yes, it was definitely dried blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his latest deduction and extracting a body from a bog.
Clashing Agendas
The local leaders are bent on demonstrating that Hilda was killed by a bear, perhaps to protect the peace, perhaps to shield one of their own. The pastor is intent on establishing otherwise, and the proof so quickly accumulates in his favour that again the show’s credibility and audience tolerance 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, with its evocation of the opposing allures and fears offered by science and religion. In its low points, it resembles a bear-themed police procedural. Still, it appears to offer the response to that debated question: “Ladies, take the bear.”
To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ now.