An intense debate lately went viral on social media, after someone asked a query for females: would you rather find yourself stranded in a forest alongside a male or with a bear? Similar to the best thought experiments, it revealed wildly different worldviews and experiences, illuminated divides between the sexes, and could easily cause a deep personal dilemma for anyone pondering on it extensively. There was also the almost inevitable follow-up in which men of a certain stripe came online to inform women how stupid they had been for choosing the animal and proceeded to limn the consequences 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 skillfully brings to life this clever small premise. This six-episode series is adapted from Swedish author the novelist’s 2018 book with the identical title (translated 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 fresh religious post in Kengis, an isolated village in Sweden’s north, during the mid-19th century. Within a community lacking many joys, none of the inhabitants especially warm to his strict approach to alcohol and revelry, but it is his defense of impoverished people – particularly the native Sami population, from which hails the pastor’s foster child the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his belief in societal fairness and equal rights that places him on a collision course against the Kengis powers that be.
The Antagonists
Quickly in cahoots opposing him include the lawman the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the intimidating mill owner the matron Sjödahl (the actress), observed early on firing a newly injured laborer with minimal compensation while he is still gibbering upon seeing of his pulped hand, and all others who benefit from a populace who can be bought with some containers of the whisky provided by the creepy store owner Lindmark (the actor). However, to be fair, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes once itinerant painter Beronius appears in the story (the performer, delivering an acting turn of rare unsettling intensity). While they remain – like the pastor himself – only a little more being stereotypes, they still serve as effective ones.
Plot Progression
With the seeds of tension sown, the moment arrives to proceed to narrative business. The servant from the doctor’s house, the character Hilda (the actress), accordingly vanishes in the forest. Signs of her escape and animal scratches upon a trunk get discovered yet she remains nowhere to be seen. Gossip and fears of a man/maid-eating bear roaming the woodland spread, yet the clergyman has another theory which he and his ward set out to verify.
A Strange Creation
This Bear Drama is a somewhat odd beast. It conjures a fine sense of the bleakness that lets suspicion and bias and dark myths thrive based on local folklore that bears can be controlled or possessed by the spirits of men. It avoids idealising the tough existence experienced by the villagers, where violence, be it from nature or mankind, lurks constantly at the periphery, waiting to erupt. Yet the personas seldom evolve more than ciphers – or perhaps, as the struggles between justice and vengeance, rationality and faith, virtue and evil escalate, emblematic figures in a fable – which stops the entire production truly coming to life.
Tonal Inconsistencies
Additionally, exist the many stylistically clashing instances in which the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and determine the maid’s destiny becomes nearly laughable. He positions himself looking at shattered containers and clumps of hair in hay barns as a fusion of the Belgian detective the English sleuth – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (none of whom were required to lick a mixture of blood droplets and saliva from his superior to confirm that indeed, it was clearly dried blood at the crime scene), before announcing his newest conclusion and pulling a body from a bog.
Opposing Goals
The local leaders are determined proving that Hilda met her end by an animal, perhaps to protect the peace, perhaps to protect one of their own. The clergyman is intent on establishing the opposite, and the proof so quickly stacks up in his favour that once more the show’s credibility and audience tolerance are tested. In its finest moments, To Cook a Bear evokes memories of the adaptation a few years ago of the author’s The Essex Serpent, through its portrayal of the opposing allures and terrors presented by rational thought and belief. At its worst, it resembles a bear-themed police procedural. Still, it appears to offer the answer to that debated question: “Females, choose the animal.”
The series streams on Disney+ currently.
