An intense discussion lately spread widely across online platforms, following a user posed a query to women: would you rather be lost in a forest alongside a male or a bear? Similar to the most engaging hypothetical scenarios, it exposed vastly opposing perspectives and life encounters, illuminated chasms between the sexes, and could easily to induce a deep personal dilemma if you thought on it for too long. There was also the almost inevitable coda where some males took to the internet to inform females how foolish they were for choosing the animal and proceeded to describe the consequences they merited for that choice. This at least allowed the women who were uncertain about their decision to make it with renewed assurance.
Dramatising the Setup
To Cook a Bear skillfully dramatises this nifty little setup. The six-part series is adapted on Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s 2018 novel of the same name (translated two years later for an English audience). It follows the struggles of a pastor (the lead actor) and his family when they arrive to begin a fresh religious post within Kengis, a remote village in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. Within a community with few pleasures, none of the locals particularly appreciate his puritanical approach to alcohol and revelry, yet it is his protection of the poor – especially the native Sami population, from among whom hails the preacher’s foster child the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in social justice and equal rights that places him in direct opposition with the Kengis local authorities.
The Antagonists
Soon in cahoots opposing him include the lawman the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating mill owner Madam Sjödahl (the actress), seen initially firing a recently mangled worker with a month’s pay while he is still babbling at the sight his crushed hand, and all others who profit from a community who can be bought for a few bottles of the whisky sold by the creepy shopkeeper Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, to be fair, Lindmark’s eeriness pales once travelling artist Beronius appears in the story (the performer, delivering a performance of exceptional unsettling intensity). While they remain – like the pastor himself – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, they still serve as potent archetypes.
Plot Progression
With the seeds of conflict sown, it is time to proceed with the storyline. The maid employed by the doctor, the character Hilda (the actress), duly goes missing from the woods. Signs of her flight and animal scratches on a tree get discovered but she is nowhere to be seen. Rumours and fears of a man/maid-eating bear roaming the woods spread, yet the clergyman holds a different view which he and his ward embark to verify.
A Strange Creation
To Cook a Bear is a somewhat peculiar show. It creates a fine sense of the desolation that allows suspicion and bias and grim legends thrive from the native legend that bears might be dominated or possessed by the spirits of men. It avoids idealising the hardscrabble life led by the villagers, in which brutality, whether that of nature or people, lurks constantly on the edges, poised to explode. But the characters rarely become more than ciphers – or perhaps, as the struggles between justice and vengeance, logic and religion, virtue and wickedness escalate, emblematic figures within a moral tale – preventing the whole thing fully becoming immersive.
Stylistic Shifts
Additionally, exist the many tonally jarring moments where the clergyman’s skill to discover clues and determine Hilda’s fate becomes almost risible. He positions himself observing shattered containers and clumps of hair within storage sheds as a fusion of the Belgian detective the English sleuth – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (neither of whom had to taste a blend of blood droplets and the boss’s spit to confirm that indeed, 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 bent on demonstrating that Hilda met her end by a bear, perhaps to protect the calm, perhaps to shield a fellow elite. The pastor is bent on proving otherwise, and the evidence so quickly stacks up supporting his view 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 TV version a few years ago of the author’s The Essex Serpent, through its portrayal of the competing allures and terrors offered by science and religion. In its low points, it’s more like a bear-themed police procedural. Nevertheless, it does seem to offer the response to that debated question: “Females, choose the animal.”
To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ now.
