An heated debate recently went viral across online platforms, following someone posed a query to women: which would you prefer be lost in the woods alongside a male or a bear? Similar to the best thought experiments, it exposed wildly different worldviews and experiences, highlighted divides among genders, and was likely cause an existential crisis if you thought on it for too long. Additionally, there came the predictable follow-up in which men of a certain stripe came online to tell females how stupid they were to select the animal and went on to limn the punishments they deserved for it. This at least allowed those females who were uncertain about their decision to make it with renewed assurance.
Dramatising the Setup
To Cook a Bear effectively brings to life this clever small premise. This six-episode drama is adapted from Scandinavian writer Mikael Niemi’s 2018 book with the identical title (translated two years later for an English audience). It traces the tribulations of a clergyman (the lead actor) and his family as they come to start a fresh religious post within Kengis, an isolated settlement in Sweden’s north, during the mid-19th century. Within a community lacking many joys, none of the inhabitants particularly appreciate his puritanical stance on drinking and revelry, yet it is his defense of the poor – especially the indigenous Sami, from among whom hails the preacher’s adopted son the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his belief in social justice and equal rights that places him on a collision course with the Kengis powers that be.
The Antagonists
Quickly collaborating opposing him include the lawman the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the fearsome factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (the actress), seen early on firing a recently mangled laborer with a month’s pay while he is still babbling at the sight of his pulped hand, and all others who profit from a community who can be bought for a few bottles of the whisky provided by the unsettling shopkeeper Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, to be fair, Lindmark’s eeriness pales once itinerant painter Beronius appears on the scene (the performer, delivering a performance of rare discomfiting power). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond than caricatures, they are at least effective ones.
Narrative Development
With the seeds of conflict sown, the moment arrives to get down with the storyline. The servant from the doctor’s house, Hilda (the actress), accordingly vanishes from the woods. Signs of her flight and animal scratches upon a trunk get discovered yet she remains completely absent. Rumours and anxieties of a man/maid-eating bear prowling the woodland circulate, yet the clergyman holds a different view 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 lets distrust and prejudice and dark myths thrive based on local folklore that bears can be controlled or possessed by the spirits of men. It avoids romanticise the hardscrabble life experienced by the residents, where violence, be it from nature or mankind, always looms on the edges, poised to explode. Yet the personas rarely become more than ciphers – or maybe, as the struggles between justice and revenge, rationality and faith, virtue and wickedness intensify, representative characters within a moral tale – preventing the entire production fully coming to life.
Tonal Inconsistencies
And then, exist numerous stylistically clashing moments where the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and determine Hilda’s fate becomes nearly laughable. He stands observing broken milk pots and strands of fur in hay barns like a combined Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (neither of whom were required to lick a blend of blood spatter and the boss’s spit to agree that indeed, it was definitely dried blood on the site), before announcing his latest deduction and extracting a body from a bog.
Opposing Goals
The local leaders are determined demonstrating that Hilda met her end by an animal, perhaps to preserve the calm, perhaps to shield one of their own. The pastor is bent on establishing otherwise, and the proof so quickly stacks up in his favour that once more the show’s credibility and the viewer’s patience get strained. At its best, the series is reminiscent of the TV version some years back of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the opposing allures and fears offered by rational thought and religion. At its worst, it’s more like a bear-themed police procedural. Still, it appears to offer the response to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”
The series streams on Disney+ now.
