A heated debate recently went viral on social media, following a user posed a query for females: would you rather be lost in the woods alongside a male or with a bear? Like all the best hypothetical scenarios, it exposed wildly different worldviews and life encounters, illuminated chasms among genders, and could easily cause a deep personal dilemma for anyone pondering on it extensively. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable follow-up where men of a certain stripe came online to inform females how foolish they had been for choosing the bear and went on to limn the punishments they deserved for that choice. This at least enabled those females who had been hesitating over their choice to make it with a new confidence.
Portraying the Scenario
To Cook a Bear effectively brings to life this nifty little setup. This six-episode drama is adapted on Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s 2018 book with the identical title (rendered two years later for an English audience). It traces the struggles of a clergyman (the lead actor) and his family as they come to begin a fresh religious post in Kengis, a remote village 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 revelry, but it is his protection of impoverished people – especially the native Sami population, from among whom comes the preacher’s foster child the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his conviction in societal fairness and equal rights that sets him on a collision course against the Kengis powers that be.
The Opposing Forces
Quickly collaborating opposing him include the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the fearsome mill owner Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen initially dismissing a recently mangled laborer with minimal compensation while he is still gibbering at the sight of his pulped hand, and anyone else who profit from a populace easily swayed with some containers of the whisky sold by the unsettling store owner the merchant Lindmark (the actor). However, to be fair, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes once travelling artist Beronius arrives on the scene (Simon J Berger, providing a performance of exceptional unsettling intensity). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – only a little more being stereotypes, they are at least potent archetypes.
Narrative Development
Once the foundations of tension sown, the moment arrives to proceed with the storyline. The servant employed by the doctor, Hilda (the actress), accordingly goes missing in the forest. Indications of her escape and bear markings on a tree get discovered but she is nowhere to be seen. Gossip and anxieties regarding a human-devouring beast roaming the woods spread, but the pastor has another theory that he and Jussi embark to verify.
A Strange Creation
This Bear Drama is a slightly peculiar show. It creates a strong impression of the desolation that allows suspicion and prejudice and dark myths flourish from the native legend that bears might be dominated or inhabited by the spirits of humans. It avoids idealising the tough existence led by the villagers, in which brutality, whether that of nature or people, lurks constantly on the edges, waiting to erupt. Yet the personas rarely become beyond symbols – or perhaps, while the conflicts between justice and revenge, logic and faith, virtue and evil escalate, representative characters within a moral tale – which stops the entire production fully becoming immersive.
Tonal Inconsistencies
And then, there are numerous tonally jarring instances where the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and determine Hilda’s fate becomes almost risible. He stands observing broken milk pots and clumps of hair in hay barns as a fusion of Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – alongside Jussi a rather hapless Hastings-cum-Watson (neither of whom had to taste a mixture of blood droplets and the boss’s spit to confirm that, yes, it was definitely coagulated blood at the crime scene), before announcing his newest conclusion and extracting a corpse from a bog.
Clashing Agendas
The village elite are determined proving that the maid met her end by a bear, maybe to protect the calm, perhaps to shield one of their own. The clergyman is intent on establishing otherwise, and the proof so rapidly stacks up in his favour that once more the show’s credibility and the viewer’s patience are tested. At its best, the series is reminiscent of the TV version some years back of the author’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the opposing allures and terrors offered by rational thought and belief. In its low points, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it does seem to provide the response to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”
The series is on Disney+ currently.
