A heated debate lately spread widely on social media, following a user posed a query for females: would you rather be lost in a forest alongside a male or with a bear? Similar to the most engaging hypothetical scenarios, it exposed vastly opposing worldviews and life encounters, highlighted divides between the sexes, and was likely to induce a deep personal dilemma if you thought on it for too long. There was also the almost inevitable coda in which some males came online to inform females how foolish they were for choosing the bear and went on to limn the punishments they deserved for that choice. This at least enabled the women who had been hesitating about their decision to decide with a new confidence.
Dramatising the Scenario
To Cook a Bear effectively brings to life this clever little setup. The six-part series is based from Swedish author the novelist’s 2018 book of the same name (translated in 2020 for an English audience). It follows the struggles of a pastor (the lead actor) and his family as they come to start a fresh religious post within Kengis, an isolated village in northern Sweden, in 1852. In a place lacking many joys, not one of the locals especially appreciate his puritanical approach to alcohol and dancing, yet it is his defense of the poor – especially the indigenous Sami, from which hails the preacher’s foster child the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in societal fairness and equality that sets him on a collision course against the Kengis local authorities.
The Antagonists
Soon in cahoots opposing him are the lawman Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the fearsome factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed early on dismissing a recently mangled laborer with minimal compensation as he remains babbling at the sight his crushed hand, and all others who benefit from a populace who can be bought with some containers of liquor provided by the creepy shopkeeper Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, to be fair, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes when travelling artist the artist Beronius arrives on the scene (Simon J Berger, delivering a performance of rare unsettling intensity). While they remain – like the pastor himself – only a little more than caricatures, they still serve as effective ones.
Plot Progression
Once the foundations of conflict planted, the moment arrives to proceed to narrative business. The maid from the doctor’s house, Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), accordingly goes missing from the woods. Indications of her escape and animal scratches on a tree are found yet she remains completely absent. Rumours and fears regarding a human-devouring beast prowling the woodland circulate, but the pastor has another theory that he and Jussi set out to verify.
A Strange Creation
To Cook a Bear is a somewhat odd beast. It conjures a fine sense of the desolation that lets distrust and bias and grim legends thrive from the native legend that bears can be controlled or inhabited by the souls of men. It avoids romanticise the tough existence led by the villagers, where violence, whether that of nature or mankind, lurks constantly on the edges, waiting to erupt. Yet the personas rarely become beyond symbols – or maybe, while the conflicts between justice and vengeance, rationality and religion, good and wickedness intensify, emblematic figures within a moral tale – which stops the entire production truly becoming immersive.
Tonal Inconsistencies
And then, exist numerous tonally jarring instances where the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and discern the maid’s destiny becomes almost risible. He positions himself observing broken milk pots and clumps of hair in hay barns as a fusion of the Belgian detective the English sleuth – with Jussi a rather hapless Hastings-cum-Watson (neither of whom had to taste a blend of blood droplets and saliva from his superior to confirm that, yes, it was definitely dried blood at the crime scene), before announcing his latest deduction and extracting a body out of a swamp.
Opposing Goals
The local leaders are bent on demonstrating that Hilda was killed by an animal, maybe to protect the peace, or possibly to protect a fellow elite. The clergyman is bent on proving otherwise, and the evidence so quickly stacks up supporting his view that once more the drama’s plausibility and audience tolerance get strained. In its finest moments, To Cook a Bear is reminiscent of the TV version some years back of the author’s The Essex Serpent, through its portrayal of the competing attractions and terrors presented by science and belief. In its low points, it resembles a bear-themed police procedural. Still, it appears to provide the answer to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”
The series streams on Disney+ currently.
