A heated discussion recently went viral on social media, following someone asked a query to women: which would you prefer find yourself stranded in a forest alongside a male or with a bear? Similar to the most engaging thought experiments, it revealed wildly different perspectives and experiences, illuminated chasms between the sexes, and was likely to induce a deep personal dilemma if you thought on it for too long. There was also the almost inevitable coda in which men of a certain stripe came online to inform women how foolish they were to select the bear and went on to limn the punishments they merited for that choice. This at least allowed those females who were uncertain over their choice to make it with renewed assurance.
Dramatising the Setup
To Cook a Bear skillfully brings to life this clever small premise. This six-episode drama is adapted from Swedish author the novelist’s 2018 book with the identical title (rendered two years later for an English audience). It follows the tribulations of a clergyman (the lead actor) and his family as they come to begin a new ministry within Kengis, a remote village in Sweden’s north, in 1852. Within a community lacking many joys, none of the inhabitants especially appreciate his strict stance on alcohol and dancing, yet it is his defense of impoverished people – particularly the indigenous Sami, from among whom comes the pastor’s foster child the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his conviction in societal fairness and equality that places him on a collision course against the Kengis local authorities.
The Antagonists
Soon collaborating opposing him include the lawman the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the fearsome factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen early on firing a recently mangled worker with minimal compensation while he is still babbling upon seeing his crushed hand, and anyone else who benefit from a populace easily swayed with some containers of the whisky sold by the creepy shopkeeper the merchant Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). However, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes once itinerant painter Beronius arrives in the story (the performer, delivering an acting turn of rare discomfiting power). If they are – like the pastor himself – only a little more than caricatures, they are at least potent archetypes.
Plot Progression
Once the foundations of tension sown, it is time to get down to narrative business. The maid from the doctor’s house, Hilda (the actress), duly vanishes in the forest. Indications of her flight and bear markings on a tree are found yet she remains completely absent. Rumours and fears of a man/maid-eating beast prowling the woods spread, 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 conjures a strong impression of the desolation that allows suspicion and bias and dark myths thrive based on local folklore that animals might be dominated or inhabited by the souls of men. It avoids idealising the tough existence experienced by the villagers, in which violence, be it from nature or people, always looms on the edges, poised to explode. Yet the personas seldom evolve beyond symbols – or perhaps, while the conflicts amid fairness and revenge, rationality and faith, good and wickedness escalate, emblematic figures in a fable – preventing the whole thing fully becoming immersive.
Tonal Inconsistencies
And then, there are the many tonally jarring instances in which the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and determine Hilda’s fate turns nearly laughable. He positions himself looking at shattered containers and clumps of hair in hay barns like a combined the Belgian detective the English sleuth – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (neither of whom were required to taste a mixture of blood droplets and the boss’s spit to agree that, yes, it was clearly dried blood on the site), before announcing his latest deduction and extracting a body from a bog.
Clashing Agendas
The local leaders are bent on proving that Hilda met her end by a bear, maybe to protect the calm, or possibly to shield one of their own. The clergyman is intent on proving otherwise, and the evidence so rapidly stacks up supporting his view that again the show’s credibility and audience tolerance get strained. At its best, To Cook a Bear is reminiscent of the adaptation some years back of the author’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the opposing allures and terrors offered by rational thought and belief. At its worst, it resembles a bear-themed police procedural. Still, it does seem to offer the answer to that debated question: “Ladies, take the bear.”
The series streams on Disney+ currently.
