An heated debate lately went viral on social media, after a user asked a query to women: would you rather find yourself stranded in the woods with a man or with a bear? Like all the best thought experiments, it exposed vastly opposing worldviews and life encounters, illuminated chasms between the sexes, and could easily cause an existential crisis for anyone pondering about it extensively. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable coda in which men of a certain stripe took to the internet to tell women how stupid they had been for choosing the animal and proceeded to describe the punishments they deserved for that choice. This at least enabled the women who were uncertain over their choice to decide with renewed assurance.
Dramatising the Setup
To Cook a Bear skillfully brings to life this nifty small premise. The six-part series is adapted on Scandinavian writer Mikael Niemi’s 2018 book with the identical title (translated in 2020 for an English audience). It traces the tribulations of a pastor (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his household when they arrive to begin a new ministry within Kengis, an isolated village in Sweden’s north, during the mid-19th century. In a place lacking many joys, none of the inhabitants especially warm to his strict stance on drinking and dancing, yet it is his defense of impoverished people – particularly the native Sami population, from among whom hails the preacher’s adopted son Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his belief in societal fairness and equal rights that places him in direct opposition with the Kengis powers that be.
The Antagonists
Quickly collaborating against him are the sheriff the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the intimidating mill owner Madam Sjödahl (the actress), observed initially dismissing a newly injured worker with a month’s pay as he remains babbling upon seeing his crushed hand, and anyone else who profit from a populace who can be bought for a few bottles of liquor provided by the creepy shopkeeper Lindmark (the actor). However, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness pales once itinerant painter Beronius arrives on the scene (Simon J Berger, providing a performance of rare discomfiting power). While they remain – like the pastor himself – only a little more than caricatures, they are at least effective ones.
Narrative Development
With the seeds of conflict sown, the moment arrives to get down to narrative business. The maid from the doctor’s house, Hilda (the actress), duly vanishes in the forest. Signs of her flight and bear markings upon a trunk are found but she is nowhere to be seen. Rumours and anxieties regarding a human-devouring bear roaming the woods spread, but the pastor holds a different view which he and his ward embark to prove.
A Strange Creation
This Bear Drama is a somewhat peculiar show. It creates a strong impression of the desolation that lets suspicion and bias and grim legends flourish based on local folklore that animals might be dominated or possessed by the souls of humans. And it doesn’t romanticise the tough existence experienced by the villagers, in which violence, be it from the wild or mankind, lurks constantly at the periphery, waiting to erupt. Yet the personas rarely become beyond symbols – or maybe, while the conflicts between justice and vengeance, rationality and religion, virtue and wickedness intensify, representative characters within a moral tale – which stops the entire production fully becoming immersive.
Stylistic Shifts
Additionally, exist the many stylistically clashing instances in which the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and determine the maid’s destiny turns nearly laughable. He stands looking at shattered containers and strands of fur within storage sheds as a fusion of Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – 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 indeed, it was definitely coagulated blood on the site), before announcing his latest deduction and extracting a body from a bog.
Opposing Goals
The local leaders are determined demonstrating that Hilda was killed by an animal, perhaps to preserve the peace, perhaps to protect one of their own. The pastor is intent on establishing the opposite, and the evidence so quickly stacks up in his favour that again the show’s credibility and the viewer’s patience are tested. In its finest moments, To Cook a Bear is reminiscent of the TV version some years back of the author’s The Essex Serpent, with its evocation of the competing allures and terrors offered by science and belief. In its low points, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it does seem to provide the response to that debated question: “Females, choose the animal.”
To Cook a Bear is on Disney+ currently.
