A intense discussion recently spread widely across online platforms, following a user posed the question to women: would you rather find yourself stranded in the woods with a man or a bear? Like all the best thought experiments, it exposed vastly opposing perspectives and experiences, illuminated divides between the sexes, and could easily cause a deep personal dilemma if you thought on it extensively. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable coda where some males took to the internet to inform women how stupid they were for choosing the animal and proceeded to limn the punishments they deserved for it. This at least enabled the women who had been hesitating about their decision to decide with a new confidence.
Dramatising the Scenario
To Cook a Bear skillfully brings to life this nifty small premise. The six-part drama is adapted from Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s 2018 novel of the same name (rendered two years later for English readers). It follows the struggles of a clergyman (the lead actor) and his family when they arrive to start a new ministry in Kengis, a remote village in Sweden’s north, in 1852. In a place lacking many joys, none of the inhabitants especially warm to his strict approach to drinking and dancing, but it is his defense of impoverished people – particularly the indigenous Sami, from which hails the pastor’s foster child the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his conviction in societal fairness and equal rights that sets him in direct opposition with the Kengis local authorities.
The Antagonists
Quickly collaborating against him include the lawman the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the intimidating factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (the actress), seen initially dismissing a newly injured laborer with a month’s pay 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 provided by the unsettling store owner Lindmark (the actor). However, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness pales when itinerant painter Beronius arrives in the story (Simon J Berger, providing a performance of rare discomfiting power). If they are – similar to the clergyman – only a little more being stereotypes, they are at least potent archetypes.
Plot Progression
With the seeds of tension sown, the moment arrives to proceed with the storyline. The maid employed by the doctor, Hilda (the actress), duly goes missing from the woods. Signs of her flight and bear markings upon a trunk get discovered yet she remains completely absent. Gossip and anxieties regarding a human-devouring bear prowling the woods circulate, but the pastor holds a different view that he and Jussi set out to prove.
An Odd Beast
To Cook a Bear is a slightly peculiar show. It creates a fine sense of the desolation that lets distrust and bias and dark myths thrive from the native legend that bears can be controlled or possessed by the souls of men. It avoids romanticise the tough existence led by the residents, in which violence, be it from nature or people, lurks constantly on the edges, poised to explode. Yet the personas rarely become beyond symbols – or perhaps, as the struggles amid fairness and vengeance, rationality and faith, good and evil intensify, representative characters in a fable – preventing the entire production fully coming to life.
Stylistic Shifts
Additionally, exist the many stylistically clashing moments where the pastor’s ability to discover clues and determine the maid’s destiny becomes nearly laughable. He positions himself observing broken milk pots and clumps of hair within storage sheds like a combined the Belgian detective and Sherlock Holmes – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (neither of whom had to taste a mixture of blood spatter and the boss’s spit to agree that, yes, it was definitely dried blood on the site), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and pulling a body from a bog.
Clashing Agendas
The village elite are bent on demonstrating that the maid met her end by an animal, maybe to preserve the peace, perhaps to protect a fellow elite. The clergyman is bent on proving the opposite, and the proof so quickly accumulates in his favour that again the drama’s plausibility and the viewer’s patience are tested. In its finest moments, the series evokes memories of the adaptation some years back of Sarah Perry’s The Essex Serpent, through its portrayal of the opposing attractions and fears presented by rational thought and religion. In its low points, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it appears to provide the response to the earlier query: “Females, choose the animal.”
To Cook a Bear is on Disney+ currently.
