A intense discussion lately went viral on social media, following a user asked the question for females: which would you prefer be lost in a forest with a man or with a bear? Like all the best hypothetical scenarios, it exposed wildly different perspectives and life encounters, highlighted chasms among genders, and could easily cause a deep personal dilemma if you thought on it extensively. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable coda in which some males took to the internet to tell women how foolish they were to select the animal and proceeded to describe the punishments they merited for that choice. This at least enabled the women who were uncertain about their decision to make it with renewed assurance.
Dramatising the Scenario
To Cook a Bear skillfully dramatises this nifty little setup. This six-episode drama is based from Swedish author the novelist’s 2018 book of the same name (rendered two years later for English readers). It traces the tribulations of a pastor (the lead actor) and his family as they come to begin a new ministry within Kengis, a remote settlement in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. Within a community with few pleasures, none of the locals particularly warm to his strict stance on alcohol and revelry, but it is his protection of impoverished people – particularly the indigenous Sami, from which comes the pastor’s foster child the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his conviction in societal fairness and equality that places him on a collision course against the Kengis powers that be.
The Opposing Forces
Quickly collaborating opposing him include the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the intimidating factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen early on dismissing a recently mangled worker with a month’s pay while he is still babbling upon seeing his crushed hand, and all others who profit from a community easily swayed with some containers of liquor provided by the unsettling shopkeeper the merchant Lindmark (the actor). Although, to be fair, Lindmark’s creepiness pales once travelling artist the artist Beronius arrives in the story (Simon J Berger, delivering an acting turn of rare unsettling intensity). If they are – like the pastor himself – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, they are at least effective ones.
Narrative Development
With the seeds of conflict planted, the moment arrives to proceed to narrative business. The servant employed by the doctor, the character Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), duly goes missing in the forest. Indications of her escape and animal scratches on a tree get discovered yet she remains completely absent. Gossip and fears of a man/maid-eating bear prowling the woods circulate, yet the clergyman holds a different view that he and Jussi embark to prove.
A Strange Creation
This Bear Drama is a somewhat peculiar show. It creates a strong impression of the bleakness that lets distrust and prejudice and grim legends flourish based on local folklore that bears might be dominated or possessed by the souls of humans. It avoids romanticise the hardscrabble life experienced by the residents, where violence, whether that of the wild or people, lurks constantly at the periphery, waiting to erupt. But the characters rarely become beyond symbols – or perhaps, while the conflicts amid fairness and revenge, rationality and faith, virtue and wickedness escalate, emblematic figures within a moral tale – preventing the whole thing fully becoming immersive.
Tonal Inconsistencies
And then, there are numerous tonally jarring moments in which the pastor’s ability to discover clues and determine the maid’s destiny becomes nearly laughable. He positions himself looking at broken milk pots and strands of fur within storage sheds as a fusion of Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – with Jussi a rather hapless Hastings-cum-Watson (neither of whom were required to taste a blend of blood droplets and saliva from his superior to confirm that, yes, it was definitely coagulated blood on the site), before announcing his newest conclusion and pulling a body from a bog.
Clashing Agendas
The village elite are bent on proving that Hilda met her end by an animal, perhaps to protect the peace, or possibly to protect one of their own. The pastor is intent on proving otherwise, and the proof so quickly stacks up supporting his view that again the show’s credibility and the viewer’s patience are tested. At its best, To Cook a Bear is reminiscent of the TV version a few years ago of Sarah Perry’s The Essex Serpent, with its evocation of the opposing allures and fears offered by rational thought and religion. At its worst, it’s more like Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it appears to provide the answer to that debated question: “Females, choose the animal.”
The series is on Disney+ currently.
