A heated debate lately went viral on social media, following a user asked a query for females: which would you prefer be lost in a forest with a man or a bear? Similar to the best thought experiments, it revealed vastly opposing worldviews and experiences, illuminated chasms between the sexes, and was likely to induce an existential crisis if you thought about it extensively. Additionally, there came the predictable follow-up in which some males took to the internet to inform women how foolish they were to select the animal and went on to limn the consequences they deserved for it. This at minimum allowed those females who were uncertain about their decision to decide with a new confidence.
Portraying the Scenario
To Cook a Bear skillfully brings to life this clever small premise. This six-episode drama is based from Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s 2018 book of the same name (translated in 2020 for English readers). It follows the tribulations of a pastor (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his family as they come to begin a new ministry in Kengis, an isolated settlement in Sweden’s north, in 1852. Within a community lacking many joys, not one of the locals especially appreciate his strict stance on alcohol and revelry, yet it is his protection of the poor – especially the indigenous Sami, from which hails the pastor’s foster child Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in social justice and equality that sets him on a collision course with the Kengis powers that be.
The Opposing Forces
Soon in cahoots against him include the sheriff the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the intimidating factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed early on firing a recently mangled worker with minimal compensation as he remains gibbering upon seeing of his pulped hand, and all others who profit from a populace easily swayed for a few bottles of liquor provided by the creepy store owner the merchant Lindmark (the actor). However, to be fair, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes once itinerant painter Beronius arrives in the story (the performer, providing a performance of exceptional unsettling intensity). If they are – like the pastor himself – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, they still serve as effective ones.
Narrative Development
With the seeds of conflict sown, it is time to get down to narrative business. The servant from the doctor’s house, the character Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), duly goes missing in the forest. Indications of her flight and bear markings on a tree are found yet she remains nowhere to be seen. Rumours and fears regarding a human-devouring beast prowling the woods circulate, but the pastor holds a different view that he and Jussi embark to verify.
An Odd Beast
To Cook a Bear is a somewhat odd beast. It creates a fine sense of the desolation that allows suspicion and prejudice and grim legends flourish from the native legend that bears might be dominated or inhabited by the spirits of men. It avoids idealising the hardscrabble life led by the residents, in which violence, be it from the wild or mankind, lurks constantly on the edges, poised to explode. Yet the personas seldom evolve more than ciphers – or perhaps, while the conflicts between justice and vengeance, logic and religion, virtue and wickedness escalate, emblematic figures in a fable – which stops the entire production fully becoming immersive.
Tonal Inconsistencies
And then, exist the many tonally jarring moments where the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and discern Hilda’s fate turns almost risible. He stands observing broken milk pots and clumps of hair in hay barns like a combined Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (none of whom had to taste a mixture of blood spatter and the boss’s spit to confirm that, yes, it was clearly coagulated blood at the crime scene), before announcing his latest deduction and pulling a corpse out of a swamp.
Clashing Agendas
The local leaders are determined proving that the maid was killed by an animal, perhaps to preserve the peace, or possibly to protect one of their own. The clergyman is intent on proving the opposite, and the proof so quickly accumulates in his favour that again the drama’s plausibility and audience tolerance are tested. In its finest moments, To Cook a Bear is reminiscent of the TV version some years back of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the opposing allures and terrors presented by rational thought and belief. In its low points, it’s more like Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Nevertheless, it does seem to offer the answer to that debated question: “Ladies, take the bear.”
The series is on Disney+ currently.
