An intense debate recently went viral across online platforms, after a user asked the question for females: which would you prefer be lost in a forest with a man or a bear? Similar to the best thought experiments, it exposed wildly different perspectives and experiences, illuminated chasms among genders, and was likely to induce a deep personal dilemma if you thought about it extensively. There was also the predictable follow-up in which men of a certain stripe took to the internet to inform females how stupid they were for choosing the bear and went on to limn the consequences they merited for it. This at minimum enabled those females who were uncertain over their choice to make it with renewed assurance.
Portraying the Scenario
To Cook a Bear effectively brings to life this nifty little setup. The six-part series is based from Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s 2018 novel of the same name (translated two years later for English readers). It traces the tribulations of a clergyman (the lead actor) and his household when they arrive to start a fresh religious post within Kengis, a remote settlement in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. Within a community lacking many joys, not one of the inhabitants especially appreciate his strict stance on alcohol and dancing, but it is his protection of impoverished people – particularly the indigenous Sami, from among whom comes the preacher’s adopted son Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his belief in societal fairness and equal rights that places him on a collision course against the Kengis powers that be.
The Opposing Forces
Soon collaborating opposing him include the sheriff the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the intimidating mill owner Madam Sjödahl (the actress), observed initially dismissing a newly injured laborer with minimal compensation while he is still gibbering at the sight his crushed hand, and anyone else who benefit from a populace who can be bought with some containers of the whisky sold by the creepy shopkeeper the merchant Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes when travelling artist the artist Beronius arrives in the story (the performer, delivering a performance of rare discomfiting power). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – only a little more than caricatures, they still serve as potent archetypes.
Plot Progression
Once the foundations of tension planted, the moment arrives to proceed to narrative business. The maid employed by the doctor, the character Hilda (the actress), accordingly vanishes in the forest. Indications of her flight and animal scratches on a tree are found but she is completely absent. Gossip and fears of a man/maid-eating bear prowling the woodland spread, yet the clergyman has another theory which he and his ward embark to verify.
An Odd Beast
To Cook a Bear is a slightly odd beast. It conjures a strong impression of the desolation that allows distrust and bias and dark myths thrive based on local folklore that animals can be controlled or possessed by the spirits of humans. It avoids romanticise the hardscrabble life experienced by the villagers, in which brutality, whether that of the wild or people, always looms on the edges, poised to explode. Yet the personas seldom evolve more than ciphers – or maybe, while the conflicts between justice and revenge, rationality and faith, good and wickedness escalate, representative characters in a fable – which stops the entire production truly becoming immersive.
Stylistic Shifts
And then, exist numerous stylistically clashing instances where the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and determine Hilda’s fate becomes nearly laughable. He positions himself observing broken milk pots and clumps of hair in hay barns as a fusion of the Belgian detective and Sherlock Holmes – with Jussi a rather hapless Hastings-cum-Watson (neither of whom were required to taste a mixture of blood spatter and the boss’s spit to agree that indeed, it was definitely dried blood on the site), prior to declaring his latest deduction and pulling a body from a bog.
Opposing Goals
The village elite are determined demonstrating that the maid was killed by a bear, maybe to protect the calm, perhaps to protect one of their own. The pastor is intent on proving otherwise, and the evidence so rapidly stacks up in his favour that once more the show’s credibility and audience tolerance get strained. At its best, To Cook a Bear evokes memories of the TV version a few years ago of the author’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the competing allures and fears presented by science and belief. At its worst, it resembles a bear-themed police procedural. Nevertheless, it appears to offer the response to that debated question: “Ladies, take the bear.”
To Cook a Bear is on Disney+ now.
