A heated discussion lately went viral across online platforms, following someone asked the question for females: which would you prefer find yourself stranded in a forest alongside a male or with a bear? Similar to the best thought experiments, it exposed vastly opposing worldviews and life encounters, highlighted divides among genders, and was likely cause a deep personal dilemma for anyone pondering about it for too long. Additionally, there came the predictable coda where men of a certain stripe came online to tell women how foolish they were for choosing the bear and went on to limn the punishments they merited for that choice. This at minimum enabled the women who had been hesitating over their choice to make it with renewed assurance.
Portraying the Scenario
To Cook a Bear skillfully dramatises this nifty small premise. The six-part series is based from Scandinavian writer Mikael Niemi’s 2018 novel of the same name (rendered in 2020 for English readers). It traces the struggles of a pastor (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his family as they come to begin a fresh religious post in Kengis, a remote village in Sweden’s north, in 1852. In a place lacking many joys, none of the inhabitants particularly warm to his puritanical approach to alcohol and dancing, yet it is his defense of the poor – particularly the native Sami population, from which comes the pastor’s adopted son Jussi (the young actor) – and his conviction in social justice and equality that places him on a collision course against the Kengis local authorities.
The Antagonists
Soon in cahoots against him include the lawman Brahe (the performer), the fearsome factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed early on firing a newly injured worker with a month’s pay while he is still babbling at the sight his crushed hand, and anyone else who profit from a populace who can be bought with some containers of the whisky sold by the creepy store owner Lindmark (the actor). However, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness pales when travelling artist Beronius arrives on the scene (the performer, providing an acting turn of exceptional discomfiting power). While they remain – like the pastor himself – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, they are at least effective ones.
Narrative Development
With the seeds of tension sown, the moment arrives to get down to narrative business. The servant employed by the doctor, Hilda (the actress), duly goes missing from the woods. Indications of her flight and animal scratches on a tree are found yet she remains completely absent. Gossip and fears regarding a human-devouring bear roaming the woods spread, but the pastor has another theory that he and Jussi set out to prove.
An Odd Beast
To Cook a Bear is a somewhat odd beast. It creates a fine sense of the desolation that allows distrust and prejudice and dark myths flourish from the native legend that animals might be dominated or inhabited by the spirits of humans. And it doesn’t romanticise the tough existence experienced by the villagers, in which violence, be it from the wild or people, always looms at the periphery, poised to explode. Yet the personas rarely become more than ciphers – or perhaps, as the struggles amid fairness and revenge, logic and religion, good and wickedness escalate, emblematic figures in a fable – which stops the whole thing truly becoming immersive.
Tonal Inconsistencies
Additionally, exist the many stylistically clashing moments where the clergyman’s skill to discover clues and determine Hilda’s fate becomes almost risible. He positions himself observing shattered containers and strands of fur within storage sheds like a combined the Belgian detective the English sleuth – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (neither of whom were required to lick a blend of blood droplets and saliva from his superior to confirm that indeed, it was clearly dried blood on the site), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and pulling a body from a bog.
Opposing Goals
The village elite are bent on proving that Hilda met her end by a bear, maybe to preserve the peace, perhaps to shield one of their own. The pastor is bent on proving the opposite, and the evidence so quickly stacks up in his favour that once more the show’s credibility and audience tolerance get strained. In its finest moments, To Cook a Bear evokes memories of the adaptation some years back of the author’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the competing allures and fears presented by science and belief. At its worst, it’s more like a bear-themed police procedural. Nevertheless, it appears to provide the response to that debated question: “Ladies, take the bear.”
To Cook a Bear is on Disney+ currently.
