A intense discussion lately went viral across online platforms, following a user asked the question to women: would you rather find yourself stranded in the woods with a man or a bear? Similar to the most engaging thought experiments, it exposed vastly opposing perspectives and experiences, highlighted chasms between the sexes, and was likely cause an existential crisis for anyone pondering on it extensively. There was also the almost inevitable coda in which men of a certain stripe took to the internet to inform women how stupid they had been for choosing the animal and went on to describe the punishments they merited for that choice. This at minimum enabled those females who were uncertain about their decision to make it with a new confidence.
Portraying the Scenario
To Cook a Bear effectively brings to life this nifty small premise. This six-episode series is adapted from Scandinavian writer Mikael Niemi’s 2018 book with the identical title (rendered two years later for English readers). It follows the tribulations of a clergyman (the lead actor) and his household as they come to begin a new ministry within Kengis, an isolated village in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. In a place lacking many joys, none of the inhabitants particularly appreciate his puritanical approach to alcohol and dancing, yet it is his defense of impoverished people – particularly the indigenous Sami, from among whom comes the preacher’s adopted son the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his belief in societal fairness and equality that places him in direct opposition with the Kengis local authorities.
The Opposing Forces
Soon in cahoots against him include the lawman Brahe (the performer), the intimidating factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen initially dismissing a newly injured laborer with minimal compensation while he is still babbling upon seeing his crushed hand, and all others who profit from a community easily swayed with some containers of liquor sold by the unsettling store owner Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes once itinerant painter the artist Beronius appears on the scene (Simon J Berger, providing a performance of exceptional discomfiting power). While they remain – like the pastor himself – only a little more being stereotypes, they are at least potent archetypes.
Plot Progression
With the seeds of tension planted, it is time to proceed to narrative business. The servant employed by the doctor, the character Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), accordingly goes missing from the woods. Signs of her escape and animal scratches on a tree are found yet she remains completely absent. Gossip 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 verify.
An Odd Beast
To Cook a Bear is a slightly peculiar show. It creates a fine sense of the desolation that lets suspicion and bias and grim legends flourish from the native legend that bears might be dominated or inhabited by the spirits of men. It avoids romanticise the hardscrabble life led by the residents, where violence, whether that of the wild or people, always looms at the periphery, poised to explode. Yet the personas rarely become beyond symbols – or perhaps, as the struggles amid fairness and vengeance, rationality and faith, virtue and wickedness intensify, representative characters in a fable – which stops the whole thing truly becoming immersive.
Tonal Inconsistencies
Additionally, exist numerous stylistically clashing instances where the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and discern the maid’s destiny turns almost risible. He stands observing shattered containers and strands of fur in hay barns as a fusion of Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – alongside Jussi a rather hapless Hastings-cum-Watson (neither of whom were required to taste a mixture of blood droplets and the boss’s spit to agree that indeed, it was definitely coagulated blood on the site), before announcing his latest deduction and pulling a corpse from a bog.
Opposing Goals
The local leaders are determined demonstrating that Hilda was killed by a bear, maybe to preserve the peace, perhaps to protect a fellow elite. The pastor is intent on establishing otherwise, and the evidence so rapidly accumulates supporting his view that again the show’s credibility and the viewer’s patience are tested. At its best, To Cook a Bear is reminiscent of the TV version some years back of Sarah Perry’s The Essex Serpent, through its portrayal of the opposing attractions and fears offered by rational thought and religion. At its worst, it’s more like a bear-themed police procedural. Nevertheless, it does seem to provide the response to that debated question: “Ladies, take the bear.”
To Cook a Bear is on Disney+ now.
