A heated discussion lately went viral on social media, following someone posed the question for females: which would you prefer be lost in a forest with a man or a bear? Similar to the best hypothetical scenarios, it exposed wildly different worldviews and experiences, highlighted divides among genders, and could easily cause a deep personal dilemma for anyone pondering about it extensively. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable follow-up in which men of a certain stripe took to the internet to inform females how stupid they had been to select the animal and proceeded to limn the consequences they deserved for that choice. This at least enabled the women who had been hesitating about their decision to make it with a new confidence.
Portraying the Scenario
To Cook a Bear effectively dramatises this clever little setup. This six-episode drama is adapted on Swedish author the novelist’s 2018 book of the same name (translated two years later for English readers). It traces the struggles of a pastor (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his household as they come to start a new ministry in Kengis, a remote settlement in Sweden’s north, in 1852. In a place with few pleasures, not one of the locals particularly appreciate his strict stance on drinking and dancing, yet it is his protection of impoverished people – particularly the native Sami population, from among whom comes the pastor’s adopted son the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his belief in social justice and equal rights that sets him in direct opposition against the Kengis powers that be.
The Antagonists
Soon in cahoots against him include the lawman Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the fearsome mill owner Madam Sjödahl (the actress), seen early on firing a newly injured worker with minimal compensation as he remains babbling upon seeing his crushed hand, and all others who profit from a community easily swayed with some containers of the whisky sold by the unsettling store owner Lindmark (the actor). However, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness pales once itinerant painter the artist Beronius appears on the scene (the performer, providing a performance of exceptional discomfiting power). If they are – similar to the clergyman – only a little more being stereotypes, they are at least potent archetypes.
Narrative Development
With the seeds of tension sown, it is time to get down with the storyline. The maid from the doctor’s house, the character Hilda (the actress), duly vanishes from the woods. Signs of her escape and animal scratches on a tree are found but she is completely absent. Rumours and anxieties of a man/maid-eating beast roaming the woods spread, but the pastor holds a different view which he and his ward set out to prove.
An Odd Beast
To Cook a Bear is a somewhat odd beast. It creates a fine sense of the bleakness that allows suspicion and prejudice and grim legends thrive from the native legend that animals can be controlled or possessed by the spirits of humans. It avoids idealising the tough existence led by the residents, where violence, whether that of nature or people, lurks constantly at the periphery, waiting to erupt. Yet the personas seldom evolve beyond symbols – or maybe, as the struggles between justice and vengeance, logic and faith, good and evil escalate, representative characters in a fable – which stops the whole thing fully coming to life.
Stylistic Shifts
And then, exist the many stylistically clashing moments where the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and discern the maid’s destiny becomes almost risible. He positions himself observing broken milk pots and clumps of hair within storage sheds as a fusion of Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – with Jussi a rather hapless Hastings-cum-Watson (none of whom were required to lick a mixture of blood droplets and the boss’s spit to confirm that indeed, it was definitely coagulated blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his latest deduction and extracting a corpse from a bog.
Clashing Agendas
The local leaders are bent on demonstrating that Hilda was killed by a bear, maybe to preserve 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 once more the show’s credibility and audience tolerance 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, through its portrayal of the opposing attractions and terrors presented 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.”
The series is on Disney+ currently.
