An heated debate lately spread widely on social media, after someone asked the question for females: would you rather be lost in the woods with a man or with a bear? Similar to the best hypothetical scenarios, it exposed vastly opposing worldviews and experiences, highlighted chasms between the sexes, and was likely cause a deep personal dilemma for anyone pondering on it extensively. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable coda where men of a certain stripe took to the internet to tell females how foolish they were for choosing the bear and proceeded to limn the punishments they merited for it. This at minimum enabled those females who had been hesitating over their choice to decide with renewed assurance.
Portraying the Scenario
To Cook a Bear effectively brings to life this clever little setup. This six-episode drama is adapted from Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s 2018 novel of the same name (rendered in 2020 for an English audience). It traces the tribulations of a clergyman (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his family as they come to begin a new ministry within Kengis, a remote village in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. Within a community with few pleasures, none of the inhabitants particularly warm to his strict stance on alcohol and dancing, but it is his protection of the poor – particularly the indigenous Sami, from among whom hails the pastor’s foster child the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in social justice and equality that places him in direct opposition with the Kengis local authorities.
The Antagonists
Soon in cahoots against him include the lawman Brahe (the performer), the intimidating factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (the actress), seen initially firing a newly injured worker with a month’s pay as he remains babbling upon seeing his crushed hand, and all others who benefit from a community easily swayed with some containers of the whisky provided by the unsettling shopkeeper the merchant Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes when travelling artist Beronius arrives in the story (Simon J Berger, delivering a performance of exceptional discomfiting power). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – only a little more being stereotypes, they still serve as potent archetypes.
Narrative Development
Once the foundations of tension sown, it is time to proceed with the storyline. The servant from the doctor’s house, the character Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), accordingly vanishes in the forest. Signs of her escape and bear markings on a tree are found yet she remains completely absent. Gossip and anxieties of a man/maid-eating bear prowling the woodland circulate, yet the clergyman has another theory which he and his ward set out to verify.
A Strange Creation
To Cook a Bear is a slightly peculiar show. It creates a strong impression of the bleakness that allows suspicion and prejudice and dark myths flourish from the native legend that animals can be controlled or inhabited by the souls of humans. It avoids romanticise the hardscrabble life experienced by the residents, where violence, whether that of nature or mankind, lurks constantly on the edges, poised to explode. Yet the personas seldom evolve beyond symbols – or maybe, as the struggles amid fairness and vengeance, logic and religion, good and wickedness escalate, representative characters within a moral tale – preventing the whole thing truly becoming immersive.
Stylistic Shifts
Additionally, there are numerous stylistically clashing moments in which the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and determine the maid’s destiny becomes nearly laughable. He positions himself looking at broken milk pots and clumps of hair in hay barns as a fusion of the Belgian detective and Sherlock Holmes – with Jussi a rather hapless assistant figure (none of whom had to lick a blend of blood droplets and the boss’s spit to confirm that, yes, it was definitely coagulated blood on the site), before announcing his latest deduction and extracting a corpse out of a swamp.
Opposing Goals
The local leaders are determined demonstrating that Hilda met her end by an animal, maybe to preserve the calm, perhaps to protect a fellow elite. The pastor is bent on establishing the opposite, and the proof so quickly stacks up supporting his view that once more the drama’s plausibility and the viewer’s patience are tested. In its finest moments, the series is reminiscent of the adaptation a few years ago of the author’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the opposing attractions and terrors offered by rational thought and belief. In its low points, it resembles a bear-themed police procedural. Still, it does seem to provide the response to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”
To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ currently.
