A heated debate lately went viral across online platforms, following a user posed the question for females: which would you prefer be lost in a forest alongside a male or a bear? Similar to the best thought experiments, it exposed vastly opposing perspectives and experiences, highlighted chasms among genders, and was likely to induce a deep personal dilemma for anyone pondering on it for too long. There was also the almost inevitable coda in which some males came online to inform women how stupid they had been to select the animal and proceeded to describe the consequences they deserved for it. This at minimum allowed the women who were uncertain about their decision to decide with a new confidence.
Portraying the Scenario
To Cook a Bear skillfully dramatises this clever small premise. This six-episode series is adapted from Scandinavian writer the novelist’s 2018 novel of the same name (translated in 2020 for English readers). It traces the tribulations of a pastor (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his household as they come to start a new ministry within Kengis, an isolated settlement in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. Within a community with few pleasures, not one of the locals especially appreciate his strict stance on drinking and dancing, but it is his defense of impoverished people – especially the native Sami population, from among whom hails the pastor’s adopted son Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in societal fairness and equality that sets him on a collision course with the Kengis local authorities.
The Antagonists
Quickly collaborating opposing him include the lawman the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the intimidating factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (the actress), seen early on firing a recently mangled worker with a month’s pay as he remains babbling at the sight of his pulped hand, and anyone else who benefit from a populace easily swayed with some containers of the whisky sold by the unsettling store owner Lindmark (the actor). Although, to be fair, Lindmark’s eeriness pales when travelling artist Beronius arrives in the story (the performer, 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
Once the foundations of conflict planted, it is time to proceed with the storyline. The maid from the doctor’s house, Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), duly vanishes in the forest. Indications of her flight and animal scratches upon a trunk are found but she is nowhere to be seen. Rumours and anxieties regarding a human-devouring beast roaming the woods circulate, yet the clergyman has another theory that he and Jussi set out to prove.
An Odd Beast
To Cook a Bear is a somewhat peculiar show. It creates a fine sense of the desolation that lets suspicion and prejudice and dark myths thrive from the native legend that bears can be controlled or inhabited by the souls of humans. It avoids idealising the tough existence experienced by the villagers, where brutality, be it from the wild or people, always looms at the periphery, waiting to erupt. But the characters rarely become beyond symbols – or perhaps, while the conflicts between justice and revenge, rationality and religion, virtue and wickedness intensify, representative characters in a fable – preventing the entire production truly coming to life.
Stylistic Shifts
And then, exist the many stylistically clashing moments in which the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and discern Hilda’s fate turns almost risible. He stands looking at broken milk pots and strands of fur within storage sheds like a combined the Belgian detective the English sleuth – with Jussi a rather hapless Hastings-cum-Watson (none of whom had to taste a mixture of blood droplets 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 body from a bog.
Opposing Goals
The local leaders are determined demonstrating that Hilda met her end by an animal, perhaps to protect the peace, or possibly to shield a fellow elite. The pastor is intent on establishing otherwise, and the evidence so rapidly stacks up in his favour that again the show’s credibility and the viewer’s patience are tested. At its best, To Cook a Bear is reminiscent of the TV version a few years ago of the author’s The Essex Serpent, with its evocation of the competing allures and terrors presented by rational thought and belief. At its worst, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Nevertheless, it does seem to offer the answer to the earlier query: “Females, choose the animal.”
The series streams on Disney+ currently.
