An heated discussion lately went viral on social media, following someone posed the question for females: would you rather be lost in the woods with a man or a bear? Similar to the best thought experiments, it revealed vastly opposing perspectives and experiences, highlighted chasms between the sexes, and could easily to induce a deep personal dilemma if you thought on it extensively. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable coda where men of a certain stripe came online to inform females how stupid they were for choosing the bear and proceeded to describe the consequences they merited for it. This at minimum allowed those females who had been hesitating about their decision to decide with a new confidence.
Portraying the Scenario
To Cook a Bear effectively brings to life this nifty small premise. This six-episode drama is adapted from Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s 2018 novel of the same name (translated two years later for an English audience). It traces the struggles of a clergyman (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his household when they arrive to start a fresh religious post within Kengis, an isolated village in Sweden’s north, in 1852. In a place with few pleasures, none of the locals particularly appreciate his strict stance on alcohol and revelry, but it is his protection of impoverished people – particularly the native Sami population, from among whom hails the preacher’s adopted son the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his conviction in societal fairness and equality that sets him in direct opposition with the Kengis powers that be.
The Opposing Forces
Soon collaborating opposing him include the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the fearsome factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (the actress), observed early on dismissing a newly injured worker with minimal compensation while he is still babbling upon seeing his crushed hand, and all others who benefit from a populace who can be bought with some containers of liquor sold by the creepy store owner Lindmark (the actor). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness pales when travelling artist Beronius appears on the scene (the performer, delivering a performance of rare unsettling intensity). If they are – like the pastor himself – only a little more being stereotypes, they still serve as potent archetypes.
Plot Progression
Once the foundations of tension planted, it is time to proceed to narrative business. The servant employed by the doctor, Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), duly goes missing from the woods. Indications of her escape and bear markings on a tree are found yet she remains completely absent. Rumours and anxieties of a man/maid-eating beast roaming the woods spread, yet the clergyman 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 strong impression of the bleakness that allows suspicion and bias and dark myths thrive based on local folklore that bears can be controlled or inhabited by the spirits of humans. It avoids idealising the hardscrabble life led by the villagers, where brutality, whether that of the wild or people, lurks constantly at the periphery, waiting to erupt. Yet the personas rarely become more than ciphers – or perhaps, as the struggles amid fairness and vengeance, rationality and religion, virtue and wickedness escalate, emblematic figures in a fable – preventing the whole thing truly becoming immersive.
Stylistic Shifts
Additionally, there are numerous tonally jarring moments in which the pastor’s ability to discover clues and discern Hilda’s fate turns nearly laughable. He positions himself observing broken milk pots and clumps of hair in hay barns like a combined Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (neither of whom had to taste a blend of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to agree that, yes, it was clearly coagulated blood at the crime scene), before announcing his newest conclusion and pulling a corpse from a bog.
Opposing Goals
The local leaders are bent on demonstrating that the maid was killed by an animal, perhaps to protect the peace, perhaps to shield one of their own. The pastor is intent on establishing the opposite, and the proof so rapidly accumulates in his favour that once more the show’s credibility and the viewer’s patience get strained. In its finest moments, the series evokes memories of the TV version a few years ago of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the opposing allures and fears presented by science and religion. In its low points, it’s more like a bear-themed police procedural. Still, it appears to provide the response to that debated question: “Ladies, take the bear.”
The series is on Disney+ now.
