A intense discussion lately went viral on social media, after a user asked the question to women: which would you prefer be lost in a forest with a man or a bear? Similar to the most engaging hypothetical scenarios, it exposed vastly opposing perspectives and experiences, illuminated divides among genders, and could easily cause a deep personal dilemma for anyone pondering on it for too long. Additionally, there came the predictable coda where men of a certain stripe took to the internet to tell women how stupid they were for choosing the bear and proceeded to describe the consequences they merited for that choice. This at least allowed those females who had been hesitating over their choice to decide with renewed assurance.
Dramatising the Setup
To Cook a Bear effectively brings to life this clever small premise. This six-episode drama is based from Scandinavian writer the novelist’s 2018 novel with the identical title (translated two years later for an English audience). It follows the tribulations of a pastor (the lead actor) and his family as they come to begin a new ministry within Kengis, an isolated village in northern Sweden, in 1852. Within a community with few pleasures, not one of the inhabitants particularly warm to his strict stance on drinking and dancing, yet it is his defense of the poor – particularly the indigenous Sami, from among whom hails the pastor’s foster child Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in social justice and equality that places him on a collision course with the Kengis local authorities.
The Antagonists
Quickly in cahoots against him are the lawman Brahe (the performer), the fearsome mill owner Madam Sjödahl (the actress), observed early on firing a newly injured worker with minimal compensation as he remains gibbering at the sight of his pulped hand, and all others who benefit from a populace easily swayed with some containers of the whisky provided by the creepy store owner Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). However, to be fair, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes when travelling artist the artist Beronius appears on the scene (the performer, providing a performance of rare unsettling intensity). If they are – like the pastor himself – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, they still serve as potent archetypes.
Plot Progression
Once the foundations of conflict sown, the moment arrives to proceed with the storyline. The servant employed by the doctor, Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), accordingly vanishes in the forest. Signs of her flight and animal scratches upon a trunk are found yet she remains nowhere to be seen. Gossip and anxieties of a man/maid-eating beast prowling the woodland spread, but the pastor has another theory which he and his ward embark to verify.
An Odd Beast
This Bear Drama is a slightly peculiar show. It conjures a fine sense of the desolation that allows distrust and prejudice and dark myths thrive based on local folklore that animals might be dominated or possessed by the spirits of humans. It avoids romanticise the hardscrabble life led by the villagers, where violence, be it from the wild or people, lurks constantly at the periphery, waiting to erupt. But the characters rarely become more than ciphers – or perhaps, while the conflicts between justice and revenge, logic and religion, virtue and evil escalate, representative characters within a moral tale – preventing the entire production fully becoming immersive.
Tonal Inconsistencies
And then, exist the many tonally jarring moments in which the clergyman’s skill to discover clues and discern Hilda’s fate turns almost risible. He stands observing broken milk pots and strands of fur within storage sheds like a combined the Belgian detective the English sleuth – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (neither of whom were required to taste a mixture of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to confirm that, yes, it was definitely coagulated blood at the crime scene), before announcing his latest deduction and extracting a body out of a swamp.
Clashing Agendas
The local leaders are bent on demonstrating that Hilda met her end by an animal, perhaps to preserve the peace, perhaps to protect one of their own. The pastor is bent on proving the opposite, and the evidence so rapidly accumulates supporting his view that again the show’s credibility and the viewer’s patience are tested. In its finest moments, To Cook a Bear is reminiscent of the adaptation some years back of the author’s The Essex Serpent, through its portrayal of the opposing allures and terrors presented by rational thought and religion. At its worst, it resembles a bear-themed police procedural. Still, it does seem to provide the answer to the earlier query: “Females, choose the animal.”
The series streams on Disney+ now.
