An heated discussion recently spread widely across online platforms, after 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 exposed wildly different worldviews and experiences, highlighted divides among genders, and was likely to induce an existential crisis for anyone pondering on it extensively. There was also the almost inevitable coda where men of a certain stripe came online to inform women how stupid they had been to select the animal and proceeded to describe the consequences they deserved for that choice. This at least enabled those females who had been hesitating over their choice to decide with renewed assurance.
Dramatising the Setup
To Cook a Bear skillfully dramatises this clever small premise. This six-episode drama is based on Scandinavian writer Mikael Niemi’s 2018 novel with the identical title (rendered two years later for English readers). It traces the tribulations of a clergyman (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his household as they come to start a fresh religious post within Kengis, a remote village in northern Sweden, in 1852. In a place lacking many joys, none of the locals especially appreciate his strict stance on drinking and dancing, but it is his protection of the poor – especially the indigenous Sami, from among whom comes the preacher’s adopted son Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in societal fairness and equal rights that places him on a collision course with the Kengis powers that be.
The Opposing Forces
Soon collaborating against him are the lawman the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating mill owner Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen initially firing a newly injured worker with a month’s pay while he is still gibbering upon seeing his crushed hand, and anyone else who profit from a populace who can be bought for a few bottles of liquor sold by the creepy shopkeeper Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness pales when itinerant painter the artist Beronius arrives on the scene (Simon J Berger, delivering an acting turn of exceptional discomfiting power). If they are – similar to the clergyman – only a little more than caricatures, they still serve as effective ones.
Narrative Development
With the seeds of tension planted, the moment arrives to get down with the storyline. The maid employed by the doctor, the character Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), accordingly vanishes in the forest. Indications of her flight and animal scratches on a tree are found yet she remains nowhere to be seen. Rumours and fears regarding a human-devouring bear prowling the woodland spread, yet the clergyman holds a different view that he and Jussi embark to prove.
An Odd Beast
This Bear Drama is a slightly peculiar show. It creates a fine sense of the desolation that lets distrust and prejudice and dark myths thrive based on local folklore that bears might be dominated or possessed by the spirits of men. It avoids romanticise the hardscrabble life led by the residents, where violence, whether that of the wild or mankind, always looms at the periphery, poised to explode. But the characters rarely become beyond symbols – or perhaps, as the struggles amid fairness and vengeance, logic and religion, good and evil intensify, representative characters in a fable – preventing the entire production truly becoming immersive.
Stylistic Shifts
And then, exist the many tonally jarring instances in which the clergyman’s skill to discover clues and discern Hilda’s fate becomes nearly laughable. He stands observing shattered containers and clumps of hair within storage sheds like a combined the Belgian detective and Sherlock Holmes – alongside Jussi a rather hapless Hastings-cum-Watson (none of whom were required to lick a blend of blood droplets and saliva from his superior to confirm that indeed, it was definitely dried blood on the site), prior to declaring his latest deduction and extracting a corpse out of a swamp.
Opposing Goals
The local leaders are bent on proving that Hilda met her end by an animal, perhaps to preserve the peace, or possibly to protect one of their own. The pastor is bent on proving the opposite, and the proof so quickly stacks up in his favour that once more the show’s credibility and the viewer’s patience get strained. At its best, the series is reminiscent of the adaptation some years back of the author’s The Essex Serpent, with its evocation of the opposing attractions and terrors presented by science and belief. In its low points, it’s more like Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Nevertheless, it does seem to provide the answer to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”
To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ now.
