An heated discussion recently spread widely on social media, following someone asked the question for females: which would you prefer find yourself stranded in the woods alongside a male or a bear? Similar to the most engaging hypothetical scenarios, it revealed wildly different worldviews and experiences, illuminated divides among genders, and could easily to induce an existential crisis if you thought on it for too long. Additionally, there came the predictable coda where some males came online to inform women how stupid they had been for choosing the bear and proceeded to limn the punishments they deserved for that choice. This at least enabled the women who were uncertain about their decision to make it with a new confidence.
Dramatising the Scenario
To Cook a Bear effectively brings to life this nifty little setup. This six-episode series is adapted from Scandinavian writer Mikael Niemi’s 2018 book with the identical title (rendered two years later for English readers). It follows the tribulations of a clergyman (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his family when they arrive to start a new ministry within Kengis, a remote village in Sweden’s north, in 1852. In a place lacking many joys, not one of the locals especially warm to his strict stance on drinking and revelry, but it is his protection of impoverished people – particularly the native Sami population, from among whom comes the preacher’s adopted son Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his conviction in social justice and equality that sets him in direct opposition with the Kengis powers that be.
The Antagonists
Quickly in cahoots opposing him include the sheriff the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating mill owner Madam Sjödahl (the actress), observed initially dismissing a newly injured laborer with a month’s pay as he remains babbling at the sight of his pulped hand, and anyone else who profit from a community easily swayed with some containers of the whisky provided by the unsettling store owner the merchant Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, to be fair, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes once itinerant painter the artist Beronius appears in the story (the performer, providing an acting turn of exceptional unsettling intensity). While they remain – like the pastor himself – only a little more being stereotypes, they still serve as effective ones.
Narrative Development
Once the foundations of conflict sown, it is time to proceed with the storyline. The servant from the doctor’s house, Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), accordingly vanishes in the forest. Signs of her escape and animal scratches on a tree are found yet she remains nowhere to be seen. Gossip and fears of a man/maid-eating beast prowling the woodland spread, but the pastor has another theory that he and Jussi embark to prove.
An Odd Beast
To Cook a Bear is a slightly peculiar show. It conjures a fine sense of the bleakness that lets suspicion and prejudice and dark myths thrive based on local folklore that bears can be controlled or possessed by the souls of men. And it doesn’t idealising the tough existence led by the villagers, in which brutality, whether that of the wild or people, always looms at the periphery, poised to explode. Yet the personas seldom evolve beyond symbols – or perhaps, while the conflicts amid fairness and vengeance, logic and faith, virtue and wickedness escalate, representative characters within a moral tale – preventing the whole thing fully coming to life.
Tonal Inconsistencies
Additionally, exist numerous stylistically clashing moments in which the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and discern the maid’s destiny turns almost risible. He positions himself observing shattered containers and strands of fur in hay barns as a fusion of Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (neither of whom had to taste a mixture of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to agree that indeed, it was clearly coagulated blood at the crime scene), before announcing his latest deduction and pulling a body from a bog.
Clashing Agendas
The local leaders are determined demonstrating that the maid was killed by a bear, perhaps to preserve the calm, perhaps to shield a fellow elite. The pastor is bent on proving otherwise, and the evidence so rapidly stacks up in his favour that once more the drama’s plausibility and the viewer’s patience get strained. In its finest moments, To Cook a Bear evokes memories of the adaptation a few years ago of the author’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the competing allures and fears offered by science and religion. At its worst, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it appears to offer the answer to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”
To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ currently.
