A heated debate recently went viral on social media, following someone asked a query to women: which would you prefer be lost in the woods with a man or with a bear? Similar to the most engaging thought experiments, it exposed vastly opposing worldviews and life encounters, highlighted chasms among genders, and could easily cause an existential crisis if you thought about it extensively. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable follow-up in which men of a certain stripe took to the internet to tell women how stupid they were to select the animal and went on to describe the punishments they merited for it. This at minimum enabled the women who were uncertain about their decision to decide with renewed assurance.
Dramatising the Setup
To Cook a Bear effectively brings to life this clever little setup. This six-episode series is based on Swedish author the novelist’s 2018 novel of the same name (translated in 2020 for an English audience). It follows the struggles of a clergyman (the lead actor) and his household as they come to begin a fresh religious post in Kengis, a remote village in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. Within a community with few pleasures, none of the inhabitants especially warm to his puritanical approach to drinking and revelry, yet it is his protection of impoverished people – particularly the indigenous Sami, from which hails the pastor’s adopted son the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his belief in societal fairness and equal rights that sets him in direct opposition against the Kengis powers that be.
The Opposing Forces
Soon collaborating against him are the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed early on dismissing a recently mangled worker with a month’s pay as he remains gibbering at the sight his crushed hand, and all others who profit from a community who can be bought for a few bottles of the whisky sold by the creepy shopkeeper the merchant Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, to be fair, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes once itinerant painter Beronius appears on the scene (Simon J Berger, providing an acting turn of rare discomfiting power). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – only a little more being stereotypes, they still serve as potent archetypes.
Plot Progression
With the seeds of conflict sown, it is time to get down to narrative business. The maid from the doctor’s house, the character Hilda (the actress), duly vanishes in the forest. Signs of her flight and animal scratches on a tree are found yet she remains nowhere to be seen. Rumours and fears regarding a human-devouring bear prowling the woods circulate, but the pastor has another theory which he and his ward set out to verify.
An Odd Beast
This Bear Drama is a slightly peculiar show. It conjures a fine sense of the desolation that allows suspicion and prejudice and grim legends flourish based on local folklore that bears can be controlled or possessed by the spirits of men. And it doesn’t romanticise the hardscrabble life experienced by the villagers, in which violence, whether that of the wild or people, lurks constantly on the edges, poised to explode. But the characters seldom evolve more than ciphers – or perhaps, as the struggles amid fairness and vengeance, rationality and faith, virtue and evil escalate, representative characters within a moral tale – preventing the entire production fully coming to life.
Stylistic Shifts
And then, there are numerous tonally jarring instances in which the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and discern the maid’s destiny becomes nearly laughable. He positions himself observing shattered containers and clumps of hair within storage sheds like a combined Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (none of whom were required to lick a blend of blood droplets and saliva from his superior to agree that indeed, it was clearly coagulated blood at the crime scene), before announcing his newest conclusion and pulling a corpse from a bog.
Opposing Goals
The village elite are bent on proving that the maid was killed by an animal, perhaps to protect the peace, perhaps to shield a fellow elite. The clergyman is bent on proving the opposite, and the evidence so quickly accumulates in his favour that again the drama’s plausibility and audience tolerance are tested. In its finest moments, To Cook a Bear evokes memories of the TV version a few years ago of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the opposing allures and terrors presented by rational thought and belief. At its worst, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it does seem to provide the answer to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”
To Cook a Bear is on Disney+ currently.
