A intense debate recently spread widely on social media, following a user posed a query for females: which would you prefer find yourself stranded in a forest with a man or with a bear? Similar to the most engaging hypothetical scenarios, it exposed wildly different worldviews and experiences, illuminated divides among genders, and was likely cause a deep personal dilemma if you thought about it extensively. There was also the predictable coda where men of a certain stripe came online to tell females how foolish they were for choosing the animal and proceeded to limn the punishments they merited for that choice. This at least allowed the women who had been hesitating about their decision to make it with a new confidence.
Dramatising the Setup
To Cook a Bear effectively brings to life this nifty small premise. This six-episode drama is based on Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s 2018 book with the identical title (translated in 2020 for English readers). It traces the tribulations of a clergyman (the lead actor) and his household when they arrive to begin a new ministry within Kengis, an isolated settlement in Sweden’s north, during the mid-19th century. In a place with few pleasures, none of the locals particularly appreciate his puritanical approach to drinking and dancing, yet it is his defense of the poor – especially the native Sami population, from which comes the preacher’s adopted son the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his conviction in societal fairness and equal rights that places him on a collision course with the Kengis powers that be.
The Antagonists
Soon in cahoots opposing him include the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the fearsome mill owner Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen initially dismissing a recently mangled worker with minimal compensation as he remains babbling upon seeing his crushed hand, and all others who benefit from a populace who can be bought for a few bottles of the whisky sold by the creepy shopkeeper Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). However, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes once travelling artist the artist Beronius arrives on the scene (Simon J Berger, providing a performance of exceptional unsettling intensity). If they are – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond than caricatures, they are at least effective ones.
Plot Progression
With the seeds of tension planted, the moment arrives to proceed with the storyline. The maid from the doctor’s house, the character Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), duly goes missing from the woods. Signs of her flight and animal scratches on a tree are found but she is completely absent. Gossip and anxieties of a man/maid-eating beast roaming the woodland circulate, but the pastor has another theory which he and his ward embark to prove.
An Odd Beast
To Cook a Bear is a slightly peculiar show. It conjures a fine sense of the bleakness that allows suspicion and prejudice and grim legends thrive from the native legend that animals can be controlled or possessed by the spirits of humans. And it doesn’t romanticise the tough existence experienced by the villagers, in which brutality, whether that of the wild or people, lurks constantly at the periphery, waiting to erupt. But the characters seldom evolve beyond symbols – or perhaps, while the conflicts between justice and vengeance, rationality and religion, good and wickedness intensify, emblematic figures in a fable – which stops the whole thing truly becoming immersive.
Tonal Inconsistencies
And then, there are the many tonally jarring moments where the pastor’s ability 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 rather hapless assistant figure (none of whom had to lick a mixture of blood droplets and the boss’s spit to confirm that indeed, it was definitely dried blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and pulling a body from a bog.
Opposing Goals
The local leaders are bent on demonstrating that the maid met her end by a bear, perhaps to protect the peace, perhaps to protect one of their own. The clergyman is bent on proving the opposite, and the proof so quickly accumulates in his favour that again the drama’s plausibility and audience tolerance get strained. At its best, the series is reminiscent of the adaptation a few years ago of Sarah Perry’s The Essex Serpent, with its evocation of the opposing allures and fears offered by rational thought and belief. In its low points, it’s more like Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it does seem to offer the answer to that debated question: “Females, choose the animal.”
To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ now.
