A heated debate lately went viral on social media, following someone asked the question to women: would you rather find yourself stranded in a forest with a man or with a bear? Similar to the most engaging hypothetical scenarios, it revealed wildly different worldviews and life encounters, illuminated divides among genders, and could easily cause a deep personal dilemma for anyone pondering about it extensively. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable follow-up in which men of a certain stripe took to the internet to tell females how foolish they were to select the animal and went on to describe the consequences they merited for it. This at least allowed those females who had been hesitating over their choice to make it with a new confidence.
Dramatising the Scenario
To Cook a Bear effectively brings to life this nifty small premise. This six-episode drama is based on Scandinavian writer the novelist’s 2018 book with the identical title (rendered two years later for English readers). It traces the struggles of a clergyman (the lead actor) and his household when they arrive to begin a new ministry within Kengis, an isolated village in Sweden’s north, in 1852. Within a community with few pleasures, not one of the inhabitants especially appreciate his strict stance on alcohol and revelry, but it is his defense of impoverished people – particularly the native Sami population, from which hails the pastor’s adopted son the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in social justice and equal rights that sets him in direct opposition against the Kengis local authorities.
The Opposing Forces
Quickly collaborating opposing him include the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the intimidating factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (the actress), seen initially dismissing a recently mangled worker with minimal compensation as he remains babbling at the sight his crushed hand, and all others who benefit from a community who can be bought for a few bottles of liquor sold by the unsettling store owner Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). However, to be fair, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes when travelling artist Beronius arrives in the story (the performer, delivering an acting turn of rare unsettling intensity). While they remain – like the pastor himself – only a little more than caricatures, they still serve as effective ones.
Narrative Development
Once the foundations of tension sown, it is time to get down with the storyline. The servant from the doctor’s house, the character Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), accordingly goes missing from the woods. Signs of her flight and bear markings on a tree get discovered but she is completely absent. Gossip and fears regarding a human-devouring beast roaming the woods circulate, but the pastor has another theory that he and Jussi embark to prove.
An Odd Beast
This Bear Drama is a slightly odd beast. It conjures a fine sense of the desolation that allows distrust and bias and dark myths flourish from the native legend that bears might be dominated or inhabited by the spirits of humans. It avoids romanticise the hardscrabble life experienced by the villagers, where brutality, be it from the wild or people, always looms on the edges, waiting to erupt. But the characters rarely become more than ciphers – or maybe, while the conflicts between justice and revenge, rationality and religion, virtue and evil intensify, representative characters within a moral tale – which stops the entire production fully becoming immersive.
Tonal Inconsistencies
And then, exist the many tonally jarring moments where the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and discern the maid’s destiny becomes almost risible. He stands observing broken milk pots and clumps of hair in hay barns like a combined Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (none of whom were required to lick a mixture of blood spatter and the boss’s spit to confirm that indeed, it was definitely dried blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and extracting a body out of a swamp.
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 a fellow elite. The clergyman is bent on establishing the opposite, and the proof so rapidly stacks up supporting his view that again the show’s credibility and the viewer’s patience are tested. In its finest moments, To Cook a Bear is reminiscent of the TV version a few years ago of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the opposing allures and fears presented by rational thought and religion. At its worst, it’s more like Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it appears to provide the response to that debated question: “Females, choose the animal.”
To Cook a Bear is on Disney+ currently.
