A intense discussion lately went viral on social media, after a user posed the question for females: which would you prefer be lost in the woods alongside a male or a bear? Like all the best hypothetical scenarios, it revealed wildly different worldviews and experiences, illuminated divides between the sexes, and could easily to induce a deep personal dilemma for anyone pondering on it extensively. There was also the predictable follow-up where some males came online to inform females how stupid they had been for choosing the bear and proceeded to limn the punishments they merited for that choice. This at least enabled the women who were uncertain over their choice to make it with renewed assurance.
Portraying the Setup
To Cook a Bear effectively brings to life this clever small premise. This six-episode series is adapted on Scandinavian writer Mikael Niemi’s 2018 book with the identical title (translated two years later for an English audience). It follows the struggles of a clergyman (the lead actor) and his family when they arrive to start a fresh religious post in Kengis, a remote settlement in Sweden’s north, in 1852. In a place lacking many joys, not one of the locals especially warm to his strict approach to drinking and revelry, yet it is his defense of the poor – especially the indigenous Sami, from which hails the preacher’s foster child Jussi (the young actor) – and his conviction in social justice and equal rights that places him in direct opposition against the Kengis powers that be.
The Antagonists
Soon collaborating against him include the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the intimidating factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (the actress), observed initially dismissing a recently mangled laborer with minimal compensation as he remains gibbering at the sight his crushed hand, and all others who profit from a community easily swayed for a few bottles of liquor provided by the unsettling shopkeeper Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). However, to be fair, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes once itinerant painter Beronius arrives on the scene (the performer, providing a performance of rare discomfiting power). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – only a little more than caricatures, they still serve as effective ones.
Plot Progression
Once the foundations of conflict planted, the moment arrives to get down with the storyline. The servant employed by the doctor, Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), duly goes missing from the woods. Signs of her escape and bear markings on a tree get discovered yet she remains nowhere to be seen. Gossip and fears regarding a human-devouring bear prowling the woodland circulate, but the pastor holds a different view which he and his ward set out to prove.
A Strange Creation
This Bear Drama is a somewhat odd beast. It creates a strong impression of the bleakness that allows suspicion and prejudice and grim legends thrive from the native legend that bears can be controlled or possessed by the spirits of men. And it doesn’t idealising the tough existence experienced by the villagers, where violence, be it from nature or mankind, always looms on the edges, poised to explode. Yet the personas rarely become more than ciphers – or maybe, while the conflicts amid fairness and vengeance, rationality and faith, virtue and evil escalate, emblematic figures in a fable – which stops the entire production truly coming to life.
Tonal Inconsistencies
Additionally, exist the many stylistically clashing moments in which 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 like a combined Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – alongside 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 definitely dried blood on the site), before announcing his newest conclusion and pulling a corpse from a bog.
Clashing Agendas
The local leaders are determined proving that Hilda was killed by an animal, perhaps to preserve the calm, perhaps to shield one of their own. The clergyman is intent on establishing otherwise, and the evidence so quickly stacks up supporting his view that once more the show’s credibility and the viewer’s patience are tested. In its finest moments, the series evokes memories of the adaptation a few years ago of the author’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the competing attractions and fears offered by rational thought and religion. At its worst, it resembles a bear-themed police procedural. Nevertheless, it does seem to provide the response to the earlier query: “Females, choose the animal.”
To Cook a Bear is on Disney+ currently.
