A heated debate recently went viral on social media, following a user asked the question to women: would you rather find yourself stranded in a forest with a man or a bear? Like all the best thought experiments, it revealed wildly different worldviews and experiences, illuminated chasms between the sexes, and was likely to induce an existential crisis if you thought on it for too long. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable follow-up in which some males came online to inform females how foolish they were to select the bear and proceeded to limn the consequences they deserved for that choice. This at minimum enabled those females who were uncertain over their choice to make it with a new confidence.
Portraying the Setup
To Cook a Bear effectively dramatises this clever little setup. The six-part drama is adapted from Swedish author the novelist’s 2018 book of the same name (translated in 2020 for an English audience). It follows the tribulations of a pastor (the lead actor) and his household as they come to start a fresh religious post within Kengis, a remote village in Sweden’s north, in 1852. Within a community lacking many joys, not one of the locals especially appreciate his puritanical stance on drinking and revelry, yet it is his defense of the poor – especially the indigenous Sami, from which hails the pastor’s adopted son Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his conviction in societal fairness and equality that places him on a collision course against the Kengis local authorities.
The Opposing Forces
Soon in cahoots opposing him are the lawman the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the fearsome mill owner Madam Sjödahl (the actress), seen early on dismissing a newly injured laborer with minimal compensation while he is still babbling upon seeing his crushed hand, and all others who benefit from a community who can be bought for a few bottles of the whisky sold by the unsettling shopkeeper the merchant Lindmark (the actor). However, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness pales when itinerant painter Beronius arrives in the story (Simon J Berger, delivering a performance of rare unsettling intensity). If they are – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond than caricatures, they are at least potent archetypes.
Plot Progression
Once the foundations of tension sown, the moment arrives to get down to narrative business. The maid employed by the doctor, Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), accordingly vanishes from the woods. Signs of her escape and animal scratches upon a trunk get discovered but she is completely absent. Rumours and anxieties regarding a human-devouring beast prowling the woodland circulate, yet the clergyman has another theory that he and Jussi set out to prove.
An Odd Beast
This Bear Drama is a slightly peculiar show. It conjures a strong impression of the desolation that lets distrust and bias and dark myths thrive based on local folklore that bears can be controlled or inhabited by the souls of men. It avoids romanticise the tough existence led by the residents, where brutality, be it from the wild or mankind, always looms on the edges, waiting to erupt. Yet the personas rarely become more than ciphers – or perhaps, as the struggles amid fairness and revenge, rationality and faith, good and evil escalate, representative characters in a fable – which stops the whole thing fully becoming immersive.
Stylistic Shifts
Additionally, there are the many stylistically clashing moments in which the clergyman’s skill to discover clues and determine Hilda’s fate becomes nearly laughable. He stands observing shattered containers and strands of fur in hay barns like a combined Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – alongside Jussi a rather hapless Hastings-cum-Watson (none of whom were required to lick a blend of blood spatter and the boss’s spit to agree that, yes, it was definitely coagulated blood at the crime scene), before announcing his latest deduction and pulling a body from a bog.
Clashing Agendas
The local leaders are bent on proving that Hilda met her end by an animal, perhaps to protect the peace, or possibly to shield a fellow elite. The clergyman is bent on proving the opposite, and the proof so quickly accumulates in his favour that again the show’s credibility and audience tolerance are tested. In its finest moments, the series evokes memories of the TV version some years back of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the opposing attractions and terrors presented by rational thought and belief. In its low points, it’s more like Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it appears to provide the answer to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”
To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ now.
