An intense discussion recently went viral across online platforms, following someone asked a query to women: would you rather be lost in the woods alongside a male or with a bear? Like all the best hypothetical scenarios, it revealed vastly opposing perspectives and life encounters, illuminated chasms among genders, and could easily cause a deep personal dilemma if you thought about it for too long. There was also the almost inevitable coda where some males came online to inform females how foolish they had been for choosing the animal and proceeded to describe the consequences they deserved for it. This at least enabled those females who were uncertain over their choice to make it with a new confidence.
Portraying the Setup
To Cook a Bear effectively brings to life this clever little setup. The six-part drama is based on Scandinavian writer Mikael Niemi’s 2018 book of the same name (translated in 2020 for English readers). It follows the tribulations of a pastor (the lead actor) and his family when they arrive to begin a fresh religious post within Kengis, an isolated village in Sweden’s north, during the mid-19th century. In a place lacking many joys, not one of the locals particularly appreciate his strict stance on alcohol and dancing, but it is his protection of the poor – particularly the indigenous Sami, from among whom comes the pastor’s adopted son Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his conviction in social justice and equal rights that places him in direct opposition against the Kengis local authorities.
The Antagonists
Soon in cahoots opposing him include the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the fearsome factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen early on firing a newly injured worker with a month’s pay while he is still babbling at the sight of his pulped hand, and all others who benefit from a community easily swayed with some containers of liquor sold by the unsettling store owner the merchant Lindmark (the actor). However, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness pales once travelling artist Beronius arrives in the story (Simon J Berger, providing a performance of exceptional discomfiting power). If they are – similar to the clergyman – only a little more than caricatures, they are at least effective ones.
Plot Progression
With the seeds of tension sown, it is time to get down with the storyline. The maid from the doctor’s house, the character Hilda (the actress), accordingly goes missing from the woods. Signs of her flight and bear markings upon a trunk get discovered but she is completely absent. Rumours and anxieties of a man/maid-eating beast roaming the woodland spread, but the pastor holds a different view which he and his ward embark to verify.
A Strange Creation
This Bear Drama is a slightly peculiar show. It creates a strong impression of the desolation that allows suspicion and bias and grim legends thrive from the native legend that bears might be dominated or possessed by the spirits of men. It avoids romanticise the hardscrabble life led by the villagers, in which violence, be it from the wild or mankind, lurks constantly on the edges, poised to explode. Yet the personas seldom evolve beyond symbols – or perhaps, as the struggles between justice and vengeance, rationality and faith, virtue and wickedness intensify, representative characters within a moral tale – preventing the whole thing truly becoming immersive.
Tonal Inconsistencies
And then, exist numerous stylistically clashing moments where the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and discern Hilda’s fate becomes nearly laughable. He stands observing broken milk pots and clumps of hair in hay barns like a combined the Belgian detective and Sherlock Holmes – alongside Jussi a rather hapless assistant figure (none of whom had to taste a mixture of blood droplets and saliva from his superior to agree that, yes, it was definitely coagulated blood at the crime scene), before announcing his newest conclusion and pulling a corpse from a bog.
Clashing Agendas
The local leaders are determined demonstrating that Hilda was killed by a bear, maybe to protect the peace, perhaps to protect a fellow elite. The pastor is bent on proving the opposite, and the proof so quickly stacks up in his favour that once more the drama’s plausibility and the viewer’s patience get strained. In its finest moments, the series is reminiscent of the TV version some years back of Sarah Perry’s The Essex Serpent, with its evocation of the competing allures and terrors presented by science and belief. At its worst, it’s more like a bear-themed police procedural. Nevertheless, it appears to provide the answer to the earlier query: “Females, choose the animal.”
The series streams on Disney+ currently.
