A intense debate lately spread widely on social media, following someone asked a query to women: which would you prefer be lost in the woods with a man or with a bear? Like all the best thought experiments, it revealed wildly different worldviews and life encounters, highlighted divides between the sexes, and could easily cause a deep personal dilemma if you thought on it for too long. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable follow-up where some males came online to inform women how foolish they were for choosing the animal and proceeded to describe the punishments they deserved for that choice. This at minimum allowed those females who had been hesitating over their choice to make it with renewed assurance.
Portraying the Scenario
To Cook a Bear skillfully dramatises this nifty small premise. This six-episode drama is adapted on Swedish author the novelist’s 2018 book of the same name (translated in 2020 for an English audience). It traces the struggles of a clergyman (the lead actor) and his household when they arrive to start a fresh religious post in Kengis, an isolated village in Sweden’s north, in 1852. Within a community lacking many joys, none of the inhabitants especially appreciate his puritanical approach to alcohol and revelry, yet it is his defense of the poor – especially the native Sami population, from among whom comes the preacher’s adopted son Jussi (the young actor) – and his conviction in societal fairness and equal rights that sets him on a collision course against the Kengis powers that be.
The Antagonists
Soon in cahoots against him include the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating mill owner Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed early on dismissing 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 populace who can be bought with some containers of liquor provided by the unsettling store owner Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, to be fair, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes once itinerant painter Beronius appears in the story (Simon J Berger, delivering an acting turn of rare unsettling intensity). If they are – similar to the clergyman – only a little more being stereotypes, they are at least potent archetypes.
Plot Progression
With the seeds of conflict sown, the moment arrives to get down with the storyline. The servant from the doctor’s house, Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), duly goes missing from the woods. Indications of her flight and bear markings on a tree get discovered yet she remains nowhere to be seen. Gossip and fears regarding a human-devouring beast prowling the woodland circulate, yet the clergyman holds a different view that he and Jussi embark to verify.
A Strange Creation
To Cook a Bear is a somewhat peculiar show. It conjures a fine sense of the bleakness that lets suspicion and prejudice and grim legends flourish from the native legend that animals might be dominated or possessed by the souls of men. And it doesn’t romanticise the tough existence experienced by the villagers, where violence, be it from the wild or mankind, lurks constantly on the edges, waiting to erupt. But the characters seldom evolve more than ciphers – or maybe, while the conflicts between justice and vengeance, logic and religion, virtue and wickedness intensify, representative characters within a moral tale – preventing the entire production truly becoming immersive.
Stylistic Shifts
Additionally, there are numerous tonally jarring moments where the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and discern the maid’s destiny turns almost risible. He stands looking at shattered containers and strands of fur in hay barns 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 pulling a corpse out of a swamp.
Opposing Goals
The village elite are determined proving that Hilda was killed by an animal, perhaps to preserve the peace, perhaps to shield a fellow elite. The pastor is bent on proving the opposite, and the evidence so quickly accumulates in his favour that again the drama’s plausibility and audience tolerance get strained. At its best, the series is reminiscent of the TV version some years back of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the opposing attractions and fears offered by rational thought and religion. In its low points, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it appears to offer the answer to that debated question: “Females, choose the animal.”
The series is on Disney+ currently.
