A heated discussion recently went viral on social media, after someone posed the question to women: which would you prefer be lost in the woods with a man or a bear? Like all the most engaging hypothetical scenarios, it exposed vastly opposing worldviews and life encounters, illuminated divides between the sexes, and could easily to induce an existential crisis for anyone pondering on it extensively. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable coda where some males came online to tell women how stupid they were for choosing the bear and went on to describe the consequences they deserved for it. This at minimum enabled the women who were uncertain over their choice to make it with renewed assurance.
Dramatising the Scenario
To Cook a Bear skillfully dramatises this clever little setup. The six-part drama is based from Scandinavian writer Mikael Niemi’s 2018 book of the same name (translated two years later for English readers). It traces the struggles of a pastor (the lead actor) and his household as they come to start a new ministry in Kengis, an isolated settlement in northern Sweden, in 1852. Within a community with few pleasures, none of the locals particularly warm to his strict stance on alcohol and dancing, yet it is his defense of impoverished people – especially the indigenous Sami, from among whom hails the preacher’s foster child the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his conviction in societal fairness and equal rights that places him in direct opposition with the Kengis powers that be.
The Opposing Forces
Soon in cahoots opposing him include the lawman the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (the actress), seen initially firing a recently mangled worker with minimal compensation as he remains babbling upon seeing his crushed hand, and all others who benefit from a populace easily swayed with some containers of liquor sold by the unsettling shopkeeper the merchant Lindmark (the actor). However, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes once travelling artist the artist Beronius arrives on the scene (the performer, providing an acting turn of rare unsettling intensity). While they remain – like the pastor himself – only a little more than caricatures, they are at least effective ones.
Narrative Development
With the seeds of tension planted, it is time to proceed to narrative business. The servant from the doctor’s house, Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), duly vanishes in the forest. Indications of her flight and bear markings on a tree get discovered but she is nowhere to be seen. Rumours and anxieties of a man/maid-eating bear prowling the woods circulate, but the pastor holds a different view 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 prejudice and dark myths flourish from the native legend that animals can be controlled or possessed by the souls of humans. It avoids romanticise the tough existence experienced by the villagers, where violence, be it from the wild or mankind, always looms at the periphery, poised to explode. But the characters rarely become more than ciphers – or maybe, as the struggles amid fairness and revenge, rationality and faith, good and wickedness intensify, representative characters in a fable – preventing the entire production truly becoming immersive.
Tonal Inconsistencies
Additionally, there are the many stylistically clashing moments where the pastor’s ability to discover clues and determine Hilda’s fate turns almost risible. He positions himself looking at shattered containers and strands of fur within storage sheds like a combined the Belgian detective and Sherlock Holmes – with Jussi a rather hapless Hastings-cum-Watson (none of whom were required to lick a blend of blood droplets and saliva from his superior to agree that indeed, it was clearly coagulated blood at the crime scene), before announcing his newest conclusion and extracting a body out of a swamp.
Clashing Agendas
The local leaders are determined proving that Hilda met her end by an animal, perhaps to preserve the calm, or possibly to shield one of their own. The pastor is intent on proving the opposite, and the proof so rapidly stacks up supporting his view that once more the drama’s plausibility and audience tolerance get strained. At its best, To Cook a Bear evokes memories of the adaptation a few years ago of the author’s The Essex Serpent, with its evocation of the opposing attractions and terrors presented by science and religion. At its worst, it’s more like a bear-themed police procedural. Nevertheless, it does seem to offer the response to that debated question: “Ladies, take the bear.”
The series streams on Disney+ now.
