A intense debate lately spread widely on social media, after a user posed the question to women: which would you prefer find yourself stranded in a forest with a man or with a bear? Similar to the best thought experiments, it exposed vastly opposing worldviews and life encounters, illuminated divides among genders, and could easily cause a deep personal dilemma for anyone pondering on it for too long. There was also the predictable coda where some males took to the internet to tell females how foolish they had been for choosing the animal and went on to describe the consequences they deserved for that choice. This at minimum allowed those females who had been hesitating about their decision to decide with a new confidence.
Portraying the Setup
To Cook a Bear effectively brings to life this nifty little setup. This six-episode series is adapted from Scandinavian writer Mikael Niemi’s 2018 novel of the same name (rendered in 2020 for an English audience). It traces the struggles of a pastor (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his family as they come to start a new ministry within Kengis, an isolated settlement in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. In a place with few pleasures, not one of the locals especially appreciate his puritanical stance on drinking and dancing, yet it is his defense of impoverished people – particularly the native Sami population, from which comes the pastor’s adopted son Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his belief in societal fairness and equality that places him on a collision course with the Kengis powers that be.
The Antagonists
Quickly collaborating opposing him include the lawman Brahe (the performer), the fearsome factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen initially dismissing a recently mangled worker with minimal compensation while he is still babbling at the sight of his pulped hand, and anyone else who benefit from a populace easily swayed for a few bottles of liquor provided by the creepy shopkeeper Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, to be fair, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes when itinerant painter Beronius arrives on the scene (the performer, delivering a performance of exceptional discomfiting power). While they remain – like the pastor himself – only a little more than caricatures, they are at least effective ones.
Plot Progression
With the seeds of conflict sown, it is time to proceed with the storyline. The servant from the doctor’s house, Hilda (the actress), duly vanishes in the forest. Signs of her escape and bear markings on a tree are found but she is 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 embark to prove.
An Odd Beast
This Bear Drama is a slightly peculiar show. It conjures a fine sense of the desolation that allows suspicion and bias and dark myths thrive from the native legend that bears can be controlled or possessed by the spirits of men. It avoids romanticise the hardscrabble life led by the villagers, in which brutality, be it from the wild or mankind, always looms on the edges, waiting to erupt. But the characters seldom evolve more than ciphers – or perhaps, while the conflicts between justice and revenge, logic and religion, virtue and evil intensify, emblematic figures within a moral tale – which stops the whole thing truly coming to life.
Tonal Inconsistencies
Additionally, exist the many tonally jarring instances in which the clergyman’s skill to discover clues and determine the maid’s destiny turns nearly laughable. He stands observing broken milk pots and strands of fur within storage sheds as a fusion of the Belgian detective and Sherlock Holmes – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (none of whom had to lick a mixture of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to confirm that, yes, it was clearly dried blood at the crime scene), before announcing his newest conclusion and pulling a corpse from a bog.
Clashing Agendas
The village elite are bent on proving that the maid was killed by an animal, perhaps to protect the calm, perhaps to protect a fellow elite. The clergyman is bent on proving the opposite, and the evidence so rapidly accumulates supporting his view that again the drama’s plausibility and audience tolerance get strained. At its best, the series is reminiscent of the adaptation a few years ago of the author’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the competing allures and terrors offered by rational thought and religion. In its low points, it’s more like Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Nevertheless, it appears to provide the answer to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”
To Cook a Bear is on Disney+ now.
