A heated discussion lately spread widely on social media, after someone posed the question to women: would you rather be lost in a forest alongside a male or a bear? Like all the most engaging thought experiments, it exposed wildly different perspectives and experiences, illuminated divides among genders, and was likely cause an existential crisis if you thought on it for too long. There was also the almost inevitable coda where men of a certain stripe came online to tell females how foolish they had been to select the bear and proceeded to limn the consequences they deserved for it. This at minimum enabled the women who were uncertain over their choice to make it with renewed assurance.
Dramatising the Scenario
To Cook a Bear skillfully dramatises this nifty small premise. This six-episode series is adapted from Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s 2018 book with the identical title (rendered two years later for English readers). It follows the tribulations of a pastor (the lead actor) and his family as they come to start a new ministry in Kengis, a remote settlement in northern Sweden, in 1852. In a place lacking many joys, none of the locals especially appreciate his puritanical approach to drinking and dancing, yet it is his protection of the poor – particularly the indigenous Sami, from among whom comes the preacher’s foster child Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in societal fairness and equal rights that places him on a collision course with the Kengis powers that be.
The Opposing Forces
Soon in cahoots opposing him are the lawman Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed early on firing a newly injured laborer with a month’s pay as he remains babbling at the sight of his pulped hand, and all others who benefit from a populace easily swayed for a few bottles of the whisky sold by the unsettling store owner Lindmark (the actor). However, to be fair, Lindmark’s creepiness pales once itinerant painter the artist Beronius appears in the story (the performer, providing a performance of rare discomfiting power). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, they still serve as potent archetypes.
Plot Progression
Once the foundations of tension sown, it is time to get down with the storyline. The servant from the doctor’s house, Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), accordingly goes missing from the woods. Indications of her flight and animal scratches on a tree are found yet she remains completely absent. Rumours and anxieties regarding a human-devouring beast prowling the woodland circulate, but the pastor holds a different view that he and Jussi set out to verify.
A Strange Creation
To Cook a Bear is a somewhat peculiar show. It conjures a strong impression of the desolation that allows suspicion and prejudice and grim legends thrive from the native legend that bears might be dominated or possessed by the souls of humans. And it doesn’t idealising the tough existence experienced by the villagers, where brutality, be it from the wild or people, lurks constantly at the periphery, waiting to erupt. Yet the personas rarely become beyond symbols – or perhaps, while the conflicts amid fairness and revenge, rationality and faith, good and evil escalate, emblematic figures in a fable – preventing the whole thing truly coming to life.
Stylistic Shifts
And then, there are numerous stylistically clashing instances in which the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and discern the maid’s destiny becomes nearly laughable. He stands observing shattered containers and clumps of hair in hay barns as a fusion of Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (neither of whom were required to lick a mixture of blood droplets and the boss’s spit to confirm that, yes, it was clearly dried blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his latest deduction and extracting a body out of a swamp.
Clashing Agendas
The local leaders are determined demonstrating that the maid met her end by an animal, perhaps to preserve the calm, or possibly to shield a fellow elite. The clergyman is bent on establishing otherwise, and the evidence so quickly stacks up supporting his view that once more the drama’s plausibility and audience tolerance get strained. In its finest moments, To Cook a Bear evokes memories of the adaptation some years back of the author’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the competing allures and fears offered by science and belief. In its low points, it’s more like a bear-themed police procedural. Still, it appears to provide the response to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”
To Cook a Bear is on Disney+ now.