An heated discussion recently spread widely on social media, following someone posed the question to women: which would you prefer be lost in a forest with a man or with a bear? Like all the best thought experiments, it exposed wildly different perspectives and life encounters, illuminated divides between the sexes, and was likely cause a deep personal dilemma if you thought about it extensively. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable follow-up where men of a certain stripe came online to tell females how foolish they had been to select the bear and went on to limn the punishments they deserved for that choice. This at minimum enabled those females who had been hesitating over their choice to make it with renewed assurance.
Dramatising the Scenario
To Cook a Bear skillfully dramatises this nifty small premise. The six-part drama is adapted on Scandinavian writer Mikael Niemi’s 2018 novel with the identical title (translated two years later for English readers). It traces the struggles of a pastor (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his household as they come to start a new ministry in Kengis, a remote village in Sweden’s north, in 1852. Within a community lacking many joys, not one of the locals particularly appreciate his strict approach to alcohol and dancing, yet it is his protection of the poor – particularly the indigenous Sami, from among whom hails the preacher’s adopted son the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his belief in societal fairness and equality that sets him on a collision course against the Kengis local authorities.
The Opposing Forces
Quickly collaborating opposing him are the lawman Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the fearsome mill owner the matron Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen initially dismissing a recently mangled worker with minimal compensation while he is still gibbering at the sight his crushed hand, and anyone else who profit from a populace who can be bought for a few bottles of the whisky sold by the unsettling shopkeeper Lindmark (the actor). However, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes once travelling artist Beronius appears on the scene (the performer, delivering an acting turn of rare discomfiting power). While they remain – like the pastor himself – just slightly beyond than caricatures, they still serve as effective ones.
Narrative Development
With the seeds of tension planted, the moment arrives to proceed with the storyline. The maid employed by the doctor, Hilda (the actress), accordingly goes missing in the forest. Signs of her escape and bear markings upon a trunk get discovered but she is nowhere to be seen. Gossip and fears of a man/maid-eating beast prowling the woods spread, yet the clergyman has another theory which he and his ward embark to verify.
An Odd Beast
This Bear Drama is a somewhat odd beast. It creates a strong impression of the bleakness that lets distrust and prejudice and dark myths flourish based on local folklore that bears can be controlled or inhabited by the souls of men. It avoids romanticise the tough existence experienced by the villagers, in which violence, be it from nature or mankind, lurks constantly on the edges, waiting to erupt. But the characters rarely become beyond symbols – or maybe, as the struggles amid fairness and revenge, rationality and faith, virtue and evil intensify, representative characters in a fable – which stops the whole thing truly coming to life.
Tonal Inconsistencies
And then, exist numerous tonally jarring moments in which the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and determine the maid’s destiny turns nearly laughable. He positions himself looking at shattered containers and clumps of hair in hay barns like a combined Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (neither of whom had to taste a blend of blood spatter and the boss’s spit to confirm that, yes, it was definitely dried blood on the site), before announcing his newest conclusion and pulling a body from a bog.
Clashing Agendas
The village elite are determined proving that the maid was killed by an animal, maybe to preserve the peace, perhaps to shield a fellow elite. The clergyman is bent on establishing the opposite, and the proof so quickly accumulates in his favour that once more the drama’s plausibility and audience tolerance are tested. At its best, To Cook a Bear evokes memories of the TV version some years back of Sarah Perry’s The Essex Serpent, through its portrayal of the competing allures and fears offered by science and belief. At its worst, it resembles a bear-themed police procedural. Still, it appears to provide the answer to the earlier query: “Females, choose the animal.”
The series is on Disney+ now.
