An intense debate recently went viral across online platforms, after a user asked the question to women: would you rather find yourself stranded in the woods with a man or a bear? Like all the best thought experiments, it exposed vastly opposing perspectives and experiences, illuminated chasms among genders, and could easily to induce a deep personal dilemma if you thought on it extensively. There was also the almost inevitable follow-up where some males came online to inform females how foolish they had been for choosing the bear and proceeded to describe the punishments they merited for it. This at least allowed the women who were uncertain over their choice to make it with renewed assurance.
Portraying the Scenario
To Cook a Bear skillfully brings to life this clever little setup. 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 traces the struggles of a clergyman (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his household as they come to begin a new ministry in Kengis, a remote village in Sweden’s north, during the mid-19th century. Within a community lacking many joys, not one of the locals particularly appreciate his strict stance on drinking and dancing, yet it is his protection of impoverished people – especially the indigenous Sami, from which hails the pastor’s foster child Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his belief in social justice and equality that places him on a collision course with the Kengis powers that be.
The Antagonists
Quickly collaborating opposing him include the lawman Brahe (the performer), the intimidating factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen early on firing a recently mangled laborer with minimal compensation while he is still gibbering at the sight his crushed hand, and all others who benefit from a community easily swayed for a few bottles of the whisky sold by the creepy shopkeeper the merchant Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). However, to be fair, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes when itinerant painter Beronius arrives in the story (Simon J Berger, delivering a performance of rare unsettling intensity). If they are – like the pastor himself – just slightly beyond than caricatures, they still serve as effective ones.
Plot Progression
Once the foundations of conflict planted, it is time to proceed to narrative business. The servant from the doctor’s house, the character Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), duly goes missing in the forest. Indications of her escape and animal scratches upon a trunk get discovered yet she remains nowhere to be seen. Rumours and anxieties regarding a human-devouring bear prowling the woodland circulate, but the pastor holds a different view that he and Jussi set out to verify.
An Odd Beast
To Cook a Bear is a slightly peculiar show. It conjures a strong impression of the bleakness that allows distrust and prejudice and dark myths thrive from the native legend that animals can be controlled or possessed by the souls of men. It avoids romanticise the tough existence experienced by the residents, where violence, whether that of nature or mankind, always looms on the edges, poised to explode. Yet the personas rarely become more than ciphers – or perhaps, as the struggles between justice and revenge, rationality and faith, good and wickedness escalate, emblematic figures within a moral tale – which stops the whole thing fully becoming immersive.
Stylistic Shifts
Additionally, there are the many tonally jarring moments where the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and discern Hilda’s fate becomes nearly laughable. He positions himself observing broken milk pots and clumps of hair in hay barns as a fusion of the Belgian detective the English sleuth – alongside Jussi a rather hapless assistant figure (none of whom had to taste a mixture of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to confirm that indeed, it was clearly dried blood at the crime scene), before announcing his latest deduction and pulling a corpse out of a swamp.
Clashing Agendas
The village elite 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 intent on proving otherwise, and the proof so quickly accumulates supporting his view that once more the drama’s plausibility and audience tolerance get strained. At its best, To Cook a Bear is reminiscent of the TV version a few years ago of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the opposing allures and terrors offered by rational thought and belief. In its low points, it’s more like a bear-themed police procedural. Still, it does seem to offer the response to that debated question: “Females, choose the animal.”
To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ currently.
