An intense debate lately went viral on social media, after a user posed the question to women: would you rather be lost in the woods with a man or with a bear? Similar to the best hypothetical scenarios, it revealed vastly opposing worldviews and experiences, highlighted divides among genders, and could easily cause an existential crisis if you thought on it extensively. There was also the almost inevitable follow-up in which men of a certain stripe came online to inform women how foolish they had been to select the bear and proceeded to limn the punishments they deserved for that choice. This at least enabled those females who were uncertain about their decision to make it with renewed assurance.
Dramatising the Scenario
To Cook a Bear skillfully brings to life this nifty little setup. The six-part series is based from Scandinavian writer the novelist’s 2018 book with the identical title (translated two years later for English readers). It traces the struggles of a clergyman (the lead actor) and his family when they arrive to start a new ministry within Kengis, a remote village in northern Sweden, in 1852. Within a community with few pleasures, not one of the locals particularly appreciate his strict stance on drinking and revelry, yet it is his protection of the poor – especially the indigenous Sami, from among whom comes the preacher’s foster child the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his belief in social justice and equal rights that sets him on a collision course with the Kengis local authorities.
The Opposing Forces
Soon in cahoots opposing him include the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the intimidating mill owner Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen early on dismissing a recently mangled worker with minimal compensation while he is still gibbering upon seeing his crushed hand, and anyone else who benefit from a populace who can be bought with some containers of the whisky sold by the creepy store owner the merchant Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). However, to be fair, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes once travelling artist the artist Beronius appears on the scene (Simon J Berger, delivering a performance of rare unsettling intensity). If they are – similar to the clergyman – only a little more than caricatures, they are at least potent archetypes.
Plot Progression
Once the foundations of conflict sown, the moment arrives to get down to narrative business. The maid employed by the doctor, Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), accordingly goes missing in the forest. Signs of her flight and animal scratches upon a trunk are found yet she remains completely absent. Gossip and anxieties of a man/maid-eating beast prowling the woods spread, but the pastor holds a different view which he and his ward embark to verify.
A Strange Creation
To Cook a Bear is a slightly odd beast. It conjures a strong impression of the desolation that lets suspicion and bias and grim legends flourish from the native legend that bears might be dominated or possessed by the spirits of humans. It avoids romanticise the hardscrabble life experienced by the villagers, where brutality, be it from nature or mankind, lurks constantly on the edges, poised to explode. Yet the personas rarely become more than ciphers – or perhaps, while the conflicts amid fairness and revenge, logic and religion, good and evil escalate, representative characters within a moral tale – which stops the entire production truly coming to life.
Stylistic Shifts
Additionally, there are numerous tonally jarring moments where the pastor’s ability to discover clues and determine the maid’s destiny becomes almost risible. He stands observing broken milk pots and clumps of hair in hay barns as a fusion of the Belgian detective the English sleuth – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (neither of whom had to taste a blend of blood droplets and the boss’s spit to confirm that, yes, it was definitely dried blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his latest deduction and pulling a body out of a swamp.
Opposing Goals
The local leaders are determined proving that Hilda was killed by a bear, maybe to preserve the peace, perhaps to shield a fellow elite. The clergyman is bent on proving otherwise, and the proof so rapidly accumulates in his favour that once more the drama’s plausibility 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 fears offered by rational thought and religion. In its low points, it’s more like a bear-themed police procedural. Still, it appears to offer the answer to that debated question: “Females, choose the animal.”
To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ currently.
