An intense debate lately spread widely on social media, after someone asked the question to women: which would you prefer find yourself stranded in the woods alongside a male or a bear? Like all the best hypothetical scenarios, it exposed vastly opposing worldviews and experiences, illuminated divides between the sexes, and could easily to induce a deep personal dilemma for anyone pondering on it extensively. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable follow-up where some males took to the internet to tell females how stupid they were for choosing the animal and proceeded to limn the punishments they deserved for that choice. This at minimum allowed those females who had been hesitating over their choice to decide with a new confidence.
Dramatising the Setup
To Cook a Bear skillfully dramatises this nifty 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 an English audience). It traces the tribulations of a clergyman (the lead actor) and his household when they arrive to start a fresh religious post in Kengis, a remote settlement in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. In a place lacking many joys, none of the inhabitants particularly warm to his strict stance on alcohol and revelry, but it is his defense of impoverished people – 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 equality that places him in direct opposition with the Kengis local authorities.
The Antagonists
Quickly collaborating opposing him are the lawman Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating mill owner Madam Sjödahl (the actress), observed early on firing a newly injured laborer with a month’s pay as he remains babbling at the sight of his pulped hand, and anyone else who benefit from a community who can be bought for a few bottles of liquor provided by the unsettling store owner Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). However, to be fair, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes when travelling artist the artist Beronius appears in the story (the performer, delivering a performance of rare discomfiting power). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – only a little more than caricatures, they still serve as potent archetypes.
Plot Progression
With the seeds of conflict sown, it is time to proceed with the storyline. The servant from the doctor’s house, Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), duly vanishes in the forest. Indications of her escape and bear markings upon a trunk are found yet she remains nowhere to be seen. Rumours and anxieties regarding a human-devouring bear prowling the woodland circulate, yet the clergyman holds a different view that he and Jussi embark to prove.
An Odd Beast
To Cook a Bear is a somewhat odd beast. It conjures a fine sense of the desolation that lets suspicion and prejudice and grim legends thrive from the native legend that bears might be dominated or possessed by the spirits of men. It avoids romanticise the tough existence led by the villagers, where violence, whether that of nature or people, lurks constantly on the edges, waiting to erupt. Yet the personas rarely become beyond symbols – or maybe, as the struggles between justice and vengeance, logic and religion, good and wickedness escalate, representative characters within a moral tale – preventing the entire production truly coming to life.
Stylistic Shifts
And then, exist numerous tonally jarring instances where the pastor’s ability to discover clues and discern Hilda’s fate turns nearly laughable. He positions himself observing broken milk pots and strands of fur in hay barns as a fusion of Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (neither of whom had to lick a mixture of blood droplets and saliva from his superior to agree that, yes, it was clearly coagulated blood at the crime scene), before announcing his latest deduction and extracting a body from a bog.
Opposing Goals
The local leaders are bent on demonstrating that Hilda was killed by an animal, maybe to protect the calm, perhaps to shield one of their own. The pastor is intent on establishing the opposite, and the proof so quickly accumulates in his favour that again the drama’s plausibility and the viewer’s patience get strained. At its best, the series is reminiscent of the adaptation some years back of the author’s The Essex Serpent, through its portrayal of the opposing allures and terrors offered by science and belief. At its worst, it’s more like Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it appears to provide the answer to that debated question: “Females, choose the animal.”
The series is on Disney+ now.
