An heated discussion recently spread widely on social media, following someone posed a query to women: which would you prefer find yourself stranded in the woods with a man or a bear? Similar to the most engaging thought experiments, it exposed vastly opposing perspectives and experiences, highlighted chasms among genders, and was likely to induce a deep personal dilemma for anyone pondering on it extensively. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable follow-up in which some males came online to inform women how foolish they had been for choosing the animal and went on to describe the punishments they merited for it. This at minimum allowed the women who were uncertain over their choice to make it with a new confidence.
Portraying the Setup
To Cook a Bear effectively dramatises this clever little setup. This six-episode series is adapted on Swedish author the novelist’s 2018 book of the same name (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 Sweden’s north, in 1852. In a place lacking many joys, none of the locals particularly warm to his strict approach to drinking and revelry, but it is his protection of the poor – particularly the indigenous Sami, from among whom comes the pastor’s adopted son Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his conviction in societal fairness and equality that sets him in direct opposition with the Kengis powers that be.
The Opposing Forces
Quickly in cahoots against him include the sheriff the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (the actress), observed initially firing a newly injured worker with a month’s pay while he is still gibbering upon seeing his crushed hand, and all others who profit from a populace easily swayed with some containers of liquor sold by the unsettling store owner the merchant Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes once itinerant painter the artist Beronius arrives on the scene (the performer, providing an acting turn of rare discomfiting power). If they are – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond than caricatures, they are at least effective ones.
Plot Progression
With the seeds of conflict sown, it is time to get down with the storyline. The maid from the doctor’s house, the character Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), duly vanishes from the woods. Signs of her escape and animal scratches on a tree get discovered yet she remains completely absent. Gossip and anxieties of a man/maid-eating bear roaming the woodland spread, but the pastor has another theory which he and his ward embark to prove.
A Strange Creation
To Cook a Bear is a slightly odd beast. It conjures a fine sense of the desolation that lets distrust and bias and dark myths flourish based on local folklore that bears might be dominated or possessed by the spirits of men. It avoids idealising the hardscrabble life led by the villagers, where violence, be it from the wild or mankind, always looms at the periphery, waiting to erupt. Yet the personas seldom evolve more than ciphers – or maybe, while the conflicts between justice and vengeance, rationality and religion, virtue and evil intensify, representative characters within a moral tale – which stops the whole thing fully coming to life.
Stylistic Shifts
And then, exist the many tonally jarring moments where the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and discern the maid’s destiny turns almost risible. He stands observing shattered containers and clumps of hair in hay barns as a fusion of Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (neither of whom had to lick a mixture of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to confirm that, yes, it was clearly coagulated blood at the crime scene), before announcing his newest conclusion and extracting a body from a bog.
Opposing Goals
The local leaders are determined proving that the maid met her end by a bear, maybe to protect the peace, perhaps to protect one of their own. The pastor is bent on establishing otherwise, and the evidence so quickly accumulates supporting his view that again the drama’s plausibility and the viewer’s patience are tested. At its best, To Cook a Bear is reminiscent of the TV version a few years ago of the author’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the opposing allures and terrors presented by rational thought and religion. At its worst, it resembles a bear-themed police procedural. Nevertheless, it does seem to provide the response to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”
The series is on Disney+ currently.