An heated debate recently went viral across online platforms, following someone posed the question for females: would you rather be lost in a forest with a man or with a bear? Similar to the most engaging hypothetical scenarios, it revealed vastly opposing worldviews and life encounters, highlighted divides among genders, and could easily to induce a deep personal dilemma for anyone pondering on it extensively. There was also the predictable follow-up where men of a certain stripe came online to inform women how stupid they were for choosing the animal and went on to limn the consequences they merited for that choice. This at minimum allowed those females who had been hesitating over their choice to decide with a new confidence.
Portraying the Setup
To Cook a Bear skillfully dramatises this nifty little setup. This six-episode series is adapted from Scandinavian writer the novelist’s 2018 novel with the identical title (rendered two years later for an English audience). It traces the tribulations of a clergyman (the lead actor) and his family as they come to start a new ministry within Kengis, a remote village in Sweden’s north, in 1852. Within a community with few pleasures, not one of the locals particularly appreciate his puritanical approach to alcohol and dancing, yet it is his defense of impoverished people – particularly the native Sami population, from among whom hails the preacher’s foster child the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in social justice and equality that places him on a collision course against the Kengis powers that be.
The Antagonists
Quickly collaborating against him are the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the fearsome mill owner Madam Sjödahl (the actress), seen early on firing a newly injured laborer with minimal compensation while he is still babbling at the sight of his pulped hand, and anyone else who profit from a community who can be bought with some containers of the whisky sold by the unsettling store owner Lindmark (the actor). Although, to be fair, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes when travelling artist the artist Beronius appears on the scene (Simon J Berger, delivering an acting turn of rare unsettling intensity). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, they still serve as potent archetypes.
Narrative Development
With the seeds of conflict sown, the moment arrives to proceed to narrative business. The servant from the doctor’s house, Hilda (the actress), duly vanishes in the forest. Indications of her flight and animal scratches on a tree are found but she is nowhere to be seen. Gossip and anxieties of a man/maid-eating beast prowling the woodland spread, but the pastor has another theory that he and Jussi embark to verify.
An Odd Beast
To Cook a Bear is a slightly peculiar show. It creates a strong impression of the bleakness that allows distrust and prejudice and dark myths flourish based on local folklore that animals might be dominated or inhabited by the souls of humans. And it doesn’t idealising the hardscrabble life experienced by the residents, where brutality, whether that of nature or people, always looms on the edges, waiting to erupt. But the characters rarely become more than ciphers – or perhaps, as the struggles between justice and revenge, logic and faith, virtue and wickedness intensify, emblematic figures within a moral tale – preventing the entire production truly coming to life.
Tonal Inconsistencies
And then, there are the many stylistically clashing instances where the pastor’s ability to discover clues and determine Hilda’s fate turns nearly laughable. He positions himself observing shattered containers and clumps of hair within storage sheds like a combined Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – with Jussi a rather hapless assistant figure (neither of whom had to lick a mixture of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to agree that indeed, it was definitely dried blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his latest deduction and extracting a body out of a swamp.
Clashing Agendas
The local leaders are determined proving that the maid was killed by an animal, maybe to preserve the peace, or possibly to protect a fellow elite. The pastor is intent on proving otherwise, and the evidence so rapidly stacks up supporting his view 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 the author’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the competing attractions and fears presented by rational thought and belief. At its worst, it resembles a bear-themed police procedural. Nevertheless, it does seem to offer the answer to the earlier query: “Females, choose the animal.”
The series streams on Disney+ now.
