An intense debate recently spread widely across online platforms, following a user asked the question to women: would you rather be lost in a forest alongside a male or a bear? Similar to the best thought experiments, it exposed wildly different worldviews and life encounters, highlighted divides among genders, and could easily cause an existential crisis for anyone pondering on it extensively. There was also the almost inevitable coda in which some males took to the internet to inform women how foolish they were to select the animal and proceeded to describe the consequences they merited for that choice. This at minimum allowed the women who had been hesitating over their choice to decide with a new confidence.
Portraying the Setup
To Cook a Bear skillfully dramatises this clever little setup. This six-episode series is based from Scandinavian writer Mikael Niemi’s 2018 book of the same name (rendered in 2020 for an English audience). It traces the struggles of a clergyman (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his family when they arrive to begin a new ministry in Kengis, an isolated settlement in Sweden’s north, during the mid-19th century. Within a community lacking many joys, not one of the locals particularly appreciate his strict approach to alcohol and dancing, yet it is his protection of impoverished people – particularly the native Sami population, from which hails the preacher’s adopted son Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in social justice and equality that sets him in direct opposition against the Kengis local authorities.
The Antagonists
Soon collaborating against him are the lawman Brahe (the performer), the fearsome factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (the actress), seen early on firing a recently mangled laborer with minimal compensation as he remains babbling at the sight his crushed hand, and anyone else who profit from a populace who can be bought with some containers of the whisky sold by the unsettling store owner the merchant Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness pales once itinerant painter the artist Beronius appears on the scene (the performer, delivering a performance of rare unsettling intensity). While they remain – like the pastor himself – only a little more than caricatures, they still serve as potent archetypes.
Plot Progression
With the seeds of conflict planted, it is time to proceed to narrative business. The maid employed by the doctor, Hilda (the actress), duly goes missing from the woods. Signs of her escape and animal scratches on a tree are found but she is nowhere to be seen. Gossip and anxieties regarding a human-devouring beast prowling the woods circulate, but the pastor has another theory that he and Jussi set out to prove.
An Odd Beast
To Cook a Bear is a somewhat peculiar show. It creates a fine sense of the desolation that allows suspicion and bias and grim legends thrive based on local folklore that bears might be dominated or inhabited by the souls of humans. It avoids romanticise the tough existence led by the residents, in which brutality, whether that of nature or people, lurks constantly at the periphery, waiting to erupt. Yet the personas rarely become beyond symbols – or maybe, while the conflicts between justice and revenge, logic and faith, virtue and evil intensify, emblematic figures in a fable – preventing the whole thing truly becoming immersive.
Tonal Inconsistencies
Additionally, there are numerous tonally jarring moments in which the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and determine the maid’s destiny becomes nearly laughable. He positions himself observing shattered containers and clumps of hair within storage sheds like a combined the Belgian detective and Sherlock Holmes – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (neither of whom had to lick a blend of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to agree that, yes, it was definitely dried blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and pulling a body out of a swamp.
Clashing Agendas
The village elite are determined demonstrating that Hilda was killed by a bear, perhaps to protect the calm, or possibly to shield one of their own. The pastor is intent on establishing the opposite, and the proof so rapidly stacks up supporting his view that once more the drama’s plausibility and the viewer’s patience are tested. At its best, To Cook a Bear evokes memories of the adaptation some years back of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the competing attractions and fears presented by rational thought and belief. In its low points, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it does seem to provide the answer to the earlier query: “Females, choose the animal.”
To Cook a Bear is on Disney+ currently.
