An intense discussion lately spread widely across online platforms, following someone asked the question for females: would you rather find yourself stranded in a forest alongside a male or a bear? Like all the most engaging thought experiments, it revealed vastly opposing perspectives and life encounters, highlighted divides among genders, and was likely to induce an existential crisis for anyone pondering on it for too long. There was also the predictable coda where some males took to the internet to tell females how foolish they were to select the animal and went on to limn the consequences they merited for it. This at least enabled the women who had been hesitating about their decision to decide with renewed assurance.
Portraying the Setup
To Cook a Bear skillfully brings to life this clever small premise. This six-episode drama is based on Scandinavian writer the novelist’s 2018 novel of the same name (rendered two years later for an English audience). It follows the tribulations of a pastor (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his household as they come to begin a fresh religious post within Kengis, an isolated village in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. Within a community with few pleasures, none of the inhabitants especially appreciate his strict approach to alcohol and revelry, yet it is his defense of the poor – particularly the indigenous Sami, from which hails the preacher’s adopted son the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in societal fairness and equality that sets him in direct opposition with the Kengis powers that be.
The Opposing Forces
Soon collaborating opposing him include the lawman Brahe (the performer), the intimidating factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (the actress), observed early on firing a newly injured laborer with minimal compensation as he remains gibbering upon seeing his crushed hand, and all others who benefit from a populace easily swayed for a few bottles of the whisky sold by the creepy store owner Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). However, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes once travelling artist the artist Beronius arrives in the story (Simon J Berger, delivering a performance of rare discomfiting power). If they are – like the pastor himself – only a little more being stereotypes, they are at least effective ones.
Narrative Development
Once the foundations of conflict sown, it is time to proceed with the storyline. The maid from the doctor’s house, Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), duly vanishes in the forest. Signs of her escape and animal scratches on a tree are found but she is completely absent. Rumours and fears regarding a human-devouring beast roaming the woodland circulate, yet the clergyman holds a different view which he and his ward embark to prove.
An Odd Beast
To Cook a Bear is a slightly peculiar show. It conjures a fine sense of the bleakness that lets distrust and prejudice and dark myths flourish from the native legend that bears can be controlled or inhabited by the souls of men. And it doesn’t idealising the tough existence experienced by the residents, in which violence, be it from nature or people, always looms at the periphery, poised to explode. But the characters rarely become beyond symbols – or perhaps, while the conflicts amid fairness and vengeance, logic and religion, virtue and wickedness escalate, representative characters within a moral tale – which stops the whole thing truly coming to life.
Stylistic Shifts
And then, exist the many stylistically clashing moments where the clergyman’s skill to discover clues and determine the maid’s destiny becomes nearly laughable. He positions himself looking at broken milk pots and strands of fur within storage sheds as a fusion of the Belgian detective the English sleuth – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (neither of whom had to taste a blend of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to confirm that, yes, it was clearly coagulated blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his latest deduction and pulling a corpse out of a swamp.
Clashing Agendas
The village elite are bent on proving that Hilda was killed by a bear, perhaps to protect the peace, or possibly to shield one of their own. The clergyman is bent on establishing otherwise, and the evidence so rapidly stacks up in his favour that again the show’s credibility and audience tolerance 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 serpent tale, through its portrayal of the opposing attractions and terrors offered by science and belief. At its worst, 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.
