An heated discussion lately went viral on social media, following someone posed a query to women: would you rather find yourself stranded in the woods with a man or a bear? Like all the most engaging thought experiments, it revealed vastly opposing perspectives and experiences, illuminated chasms between the sexes, and was likely cause an existential crisis for anyone pondering about it for too long. There was also the almost inevitable follow-up where some males took to the internet to tell females how foolish they were for choosing the animal and proceeded to describe the punishments they deserved for that choice. This at minimum enabled those females who were uncertain about their decision to decide with a new confidence.
Dramatising the Scenario
To Cook a Bear skillfully dramatises this nifty small premise. The six-part drama is based on Scandinavian writer the novelist’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 fresh religious post in Kengis, an isolated settlement in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. Within a community lacking many joys, none of the inhabitants especially warm to his strict approach to drinking and dancing, but it is his protection of the poor – especially the native Sami population, from which comes the pastor’s foster child the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his belief in social justice and equality that sets him in direct opposition against the Kengis local authorities.
The Antagonists
Soon in cahoots opposing him are the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the fearsome mill owner Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed early on dismissing a recently mangled worker with minimal compensation while he is still babbling at the sight his crushed hand, and all others who profit from a populace who can be bought with some containers of the whisky provided by the unsettling shopkeeper Lindmark (the actor). Although, to be fair, Lindmark’s creepiness pales once itinerant painter Beronius arrives on the scene (Simon J Berger, delivering a performance of rare discomfiting power). If they are – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, they are at least effective ones.
Narrative Development
With the seeds of conflict sown, the moment arrives to proceed with the storyline. The maid from the doctor’s house, Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), duly goes missing in the forest. Indications of her escape and bear markings upon a trunk get discovered but she is nowhere to be seen. Gossip and fears regarding a human-devouring beast roaming the woodland spread, but the pastor has another theory which he and his ward embark to verify.
A Strange Creation
To Cook a Bear is a slightly odd beast. It creates a strong impression of the bleakness that allows distrust and prejudice and grim legends flourish based on local folklore that bears can be controlled or inhabited by the spirits of men. And it doesn’t idealising the tough existence led by the residents, in which brutality, whether that of nature or people, lurks constantly on the edges, waiting to erupt. But the characters seldom evolve more than ciphers – or perhaps, as the struggles amid fairness and vengeance, logic and faith, good and evil intensify, representative characters in a fable – which stops the entire production truly becoming immersive.
Stylistic Shifts
And then, there are the many stylistically clashing moments in which the pastor’s ability to discover clues and discern Hilda’s fate becomes nearly laughable. He stands observing broken milk pots and clumps of hair in hay barns as a fusion of Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (neither of whom were required to taste a mixture of blood spatter and the boss’s spit to confirm that indeed, it was definitely coagulated blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his latest deduction and pulling a body from a bog.
Clashing Agendas
The village elite are determined proving that Hilda met her end by a bear, maybe to protect the calm, perhaps to shield a fellow elite. The pastor is intent on proving otherwise, and the evidence so rapidly stacks up supporting his view that again the show’s credibility and the viewer’s patience get strained. In its finest moments, To Cook a Bear is reminiscent of the adaptation some years back of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the opposing attractions and fears offered by rational thought and religion. At its worst, it’s more like Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it does seem to provide the response to the earlier query: “Females, choose the animal.”
To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ currently.
