An heated discussion recently went viral on social media, following someone posed the question for females: would you rather be lost in a forest alongside a male or with a bear? Like all the best thought experiments, it exposed wildly different perspectives and experiences, illuminated chasms among genders, and could easily to induce an existential crisis if you thought about it extensively. Additionally, there came the predictable follow-up in which men of a certain stripe took to the internet to inform women how foolish they had been to select the bear and went on to limn the consequences they deserved for that choice. This at least enabled those females who were uncertain over their choice to make it with a new confidence.
Portraying the Scenario
To Cook a Bear skillfully brings to life this nifty little setup. The six-part series is adapted from Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s 2018 book with the identical title (rendered two years later for an English audience). It follows the struggles of a pastor (the lead actor) and his household when they arrive to begin a new ministry in Kengis, a remote village in Sweden’s north, in 1852. In a place lacking many joys, none of the inhabitants especially appreciate his strict stance on drinking and dancing, but it is his defense of the poor – particularly the indigenous Sami, from which hails the preacher’s foster child Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his belief in societal fairness and equal rights that sets him on a collision course against the Kengis powers that be.
The Opposing Forces
Soon collaborating opposing him are the sheriff the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (the actress), seen initially firing a newly injured laborer with minimal compensation while he is still babbling at the sight of his pulped hand, and anyone else who benefit from a community easily swayed for a few bottles of liquor sold by the creepy shopkeeper Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness pales when travelling artist Beronius appears on the scene (the performer, providing an acting turn of rare unsettling intensity). If they are – like the pastor himself – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, they still serve as potent archetypes.
Narrative Development
With the seeds of tension sown, the moment arrives to get down with the storyline. The servant from the doctor’s house, the character Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), accordingly vanishes in the forest. Indications of her escape and animal scratches on a tree get discovered but she is completely absent. Rumours and anxieties 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 strong impression of the bleakness that lets distrust and bias and dark myths thrive based on local folklore that bears might be dominated or possessed by the spirits of men. And it doesn’t idealising the hardscrabble life led by the residents, where violence, whether that of the wild or mankind, lurks constantly on the edges, poised to explode. Yet the personas rarely become beyond symbols – or maybe, as the struggles amid fairness and revenge, logic and religion, virtue and evil escalate, representative characters in a fable – which stops the whole thing truly becoming immersive.
Tonal Inconsistencies
Additionally, exist the many stylistically clashing moments where the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and determine Hilda’s fate becomes almost risible. He positions himself looking at broken milk pots and clumps of hair within storage sheds as a fusion of the Belgian detective and Sherlock Holmes – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (neither of whom had to lick a mixture of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to agree that, yes, it was clearly dried blood at the crime scene), before announcing his newest conclusion and pulling a body out of a swamp.
Clashing Agendas
The village elite are bent on demonstrating that Hilda met her end by an animal, perhaps to preserve the calm, perhaps to shield a fellow elite. The clergyman is intent on proving the opposite, and the proof so quickly accumulates supporting his view that once more the drama’s plausibility and audience tolerance are tested. In its finest moments, the series evokes memories of the TV version a few years ago of Sarah Perry’s The Essex Serpent, through its portrayal of the opposing attractions and fears offered by science and belief. At its worst, it resembles a bear-themed police procedural. Still, it appears to offer the answer to that debated question: “Females, choose the animal.”
The series streams on Disney+ currently.
