An intense discussion recently spread widely across online platforms, after a user posed a query for females: which would you prefer find yourself stranded in a forest alongside a male or a bear? Like all the most engaging hypothetical scenarios, it revealed wildly different worldviews and experiences, highlighted divides among genders, and could easily cause a deep personal dilemma if you thought on it extensively. There was also the almost inevitable coda where men of a certain stripe took to the internet to inform females how foolish they had been for choosing the bear and went on to describe the punishments they merited for that choice. This at minimum enabled those females who were uncertain about their decision to make it with renewed assurance.
Dramatising the Setup
To Cook a Bear skillfully dramatises this nifty little setup. This six-episode series is adapted on Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s 2018 novel with the identical title (translated two years later for English readers). It follows the tribulations of a pastor (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his household as they come to begin a new ministry in Kengis, an isolated village in northern Sweden, in 1852. In a place with few pleasures, none of the inhabitants particularly warm to his puritanical stance on drinking and dancing, yet it is his protection of impoverished people – particularly the native Sami population, from among whom comes the preacher’s adopted son Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his conviction in societal fairness and equality that sets him in direct opposition against the Kengis local authorities.
The Opposing Forces
Quickly in cahoots against him are the sheriff the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen initially firing a recently mangled worker with a month’s pay as he remains babbling at the sight his crushed hand, and anyone else who benefit from a populace who can be bought with some containers of liquor provided by the creepy store owner the merchant Lindmark (the actor). However, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes when travelling artist Beronius appears on the scene (Simon J Berger, delivering a performance of rare discomfiting power). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – only a little more being stereotypes, they still serve as effective ones.
Narrative Development
Once the foundations of conflict sown, it is time to proceed with the storyline. The servant employed by the doctor, the character Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), accordingly vanishes in the forest. Signs of her escape and bear markings upon a trunk get discovered but she is nowhere to be seen. Rumours and fears regarding a human-devouring beast roaming the woodland spread, but the pastor has another theory which he and his ward embark to prove.
An Odd Beast
This Bear Drama is a somewhat odd beast. It creates a fine sense of the bleakness that allows suspicion and bias and dark myths flourish from the native legend that bears can be controlled or inhabited by the souls of men. It avoids idealising the hardscrabble life led by the villagers, where violence, be it from nature or mankind, always looms on the edges, poised to explode. Yet the personas seldom evolve more than ciphers – or maybe, while the conflicts amid fairness and revenge, rationality and religion, good and evil intensify, representative characters in a fable – which stops the entire production fully coming to life.
Stylistic Shifts
Additionally, exist numerous stylistically clashing instances in which the clergyman’s skill to discover clues and discern the maid’s destiny turns nearly laughable. He stands observing shattered containers and strands of fur within storage sheds as a fusion of the Belgian detective the English sleuth – with Jussi a rather hapless Hastings-cum-Watson (none of whom were required to lick a blend of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to confirm that indeed, it was clearly dried blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and pulling a corpse out of a swamp.
Clashing Agendas
The local leaders are bent on proving that Hilda met her end by a bear, perhaps to protect the peace, or possibly to shield one of their own. The pastor is intent on proving otherwise, and the proof so quickly accumulates supporting his view that once more the drama’s plausibility and the viewer’s patience are tested. 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 attractions and terrors offered by rational thought and religion. In its low points, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it appears to offer the response to that debated question: “Ladies, take the bear.”
To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ currently.
