An intense discussion lately spread widely on social media, after someone asked a query to women: would you rather find yourself stranded in a forest with a man or with a bear? Similar to the most engaging thought experiments, it exposed wildly different worldviews and experiences, highlighted chasms among genders, and was likely to induce a deep personal dilemma if you thought about it extensively. There was also the almost inevitable follow-up in which some males took to the internet to inform females how stupid they were to select the animal and went on to describe the punishments they merited for it. This at least enabled those females who had been hesitating over their choice to decide with renewed assurance.
Dramatising the Setup
To Cook a Bear skillfully brings to life this nifty little setup. The six-part drama is adapted on Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s 2018 book with the identical title (translated in 2020 for an English audience). It follows the struggles of a clergyman (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his family as they come to begin a new ministry in Kengis, an isolated village in Sweden’s north, in 1852. Within a community with few pleasures, none of the locals especially appreciate his strict stance on drinking and revelry, but it is his defense of impoverished people – especially the indigenous Sami, from among whom comes the preacher’s foster child Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his conviction in societal fairness and equality that sets him on a collision course with the Kengis local authorities.
The Antagonists
Soon in cahoots opposing him are the lawman the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating mill owner the matron Sjödahl (the actress), observed initially dismissing a recently mangled worker with minimal compensation while he is still gibbering at the sight of his pulped hand, and anyone else who benefit from a community easily swayed with some containers of liquor provided by the unsettling shopkeeper Lindmark (the actor). However, to be fair, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes when itinerant painter Beronius appears in the story (Simon J Berger, delivering an acting turn of exceptional discomfiting power). If they are – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, they still serve as effective ones.
Plot Progression
With the seeds of conflict sown, it is time to proceed with the storyline. The maid employed by the doctor, the character Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), duly vanishes in the forest. Signs of her escape and bear markings on a tree are found yet she remains completely absent. Rumours and fears of a man/maid-eating bear roaming the woodland circulate, but the pastor has another theory that he and Jussi embark to prove.
A Strange Creation
This Bear Drama is a somewhat peculiar show. It creates a strong impression of the desolation that allows distrust and prejudice and dark myths flourish based on local folklore that bears might be dominated or inhabited by the spirits of men. And it doesn’t idealising the tough existence led by the residents, in which violence, whether that of nature or people, lurks constantly at the periphery, waiting to erupt. But the characters seldom evolve beyond symbols – or maybe, while the conflicts between justice and revenge, rationality and faith, good and wickedness intensify, emblematic figures within a moral tale – which stops the entire production truly becoming immersive.
Tonal Inconsistencies
Additionally, there are the many stylistically clashing instances where the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and determine Hilda’s fate becomes nearly laughable. He stands looking at broken milk pots and strands of fur in hay barns as a fusion of Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – with Jussi a rather hapless assistant figure (neither of whom were required to taste a mixture of blood spatter and the boss’s spit to agree that indeed, it was clearly coagulated blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his latest deduction and pulling a body out of a swamp.
Opposing Goals
The village elite are determined demonstrating that the maid was killed by an animal, maybe to protect the peace, or possibly to shield one of their own. The pastor is intent on establishing the opposite, and the evidence so rapidly accumulates in his favour that again the show’s credibility and the viewer’s patience are tested. In its finest moments, the series evokes memories of the TV version some years back of the author’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the competing attractions and terrors offered by science and religion. At its worst, it’s more like a bear-themed police procedural. Still, it does seem to provide the answer to that debated question: “Females, choose the animal.”
The series streams on Disney+ now.
