An heated debate recently went viral across online platforms, following someone posed the question to women: which would you prefer be lost in the woods with a man or with a bear? Similar to the best thought experiments, it revealed wildly different perspectives and experiences, highlighted divides between the sexes, and could easily cause a deep personal dilemma for anyone pondering on it extensively. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable coda where men of a certain stripe took to the internet to tell females how stupid they had been to select the bear and proceeded to limn the punishments they deserved for it. This at least allowed the women who had been hesitating over their choice to decide with a new confidence.
Dramatising the Scenario
To Cook a Bear effectively dramatises this nifty little setup. The six-part series is adapted on Scandinavian writer Mikael Niemi’s 2018 novel of the same name (translated in 2020 for English readers). It traces the tribulations of a pastor (the lead actor) and his family when they arrive to start a new ministry within Kengis, a remote settlement in Sweden’s north, during the mid-19th century. Within a community lacking many joys, none of the locals especially appreciate his puritanical approach to drinking and dancing, yet 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 belief in social justice and equality that places him in direct opposition with the Kengis powers that be.
The Opposing Forces
Quickly collaborating against him are the lawman Brahe (the performer), the fearsome factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed early on firing a recently mangled laborer with a month’s pay as he remains babbling at the sight his crushed hand, and all others who benefit from a community who can be bought with some containers of the whisky provided by the unsettling store owner the merchant Lindmark (the actor). Although, to be fair, Lindmark’s creepiness pales once travelling artist Beronius arrives on the scene (Simon J Berger, delivering an acting turn of rare unsettling intensity). If they are – like the pastor himself – just slightly beyond than caricatures, they are at least effective ones.
Narrative Development
Once the foundations of tension planted, it is time to proceed with the storyline. The maid from the doctor’s house, the character Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), duly vanishes from the woods. Signs of her flight and bear markings upon a trunk get discovered but she is nowhere to be seen. Rumours and fears regarding a human-devouring bear prowling the woods circulate, but the pastor holds a different view that he and Jussi set out to verify.
A Strange Creation
This Bear Drama is a slightly peculiar show. It creates a strong impression of the bleakness that lets suspicion and bias and dark myths thrive based on local folklore that bears can be controlled or inhabited by the souls of men. And it doesn’t romanticise the tough existence experienced by the villagers, in which brutality, whether that of the wild or people, lurks constantly on the edges, poised to explode. Yet the personas seldom evolve beyond symbols – or maybe, as the struggles amid fairness and vengeance, rationality and faith, good and wickedness intensify, representative characters in a fable – which stops the whole thing fully coming to life.
Tonal Inconsistencies
And then, exist the many stylistically clashing instances in which the clergyman’s skill to discover clues and discern the maid’s destiny becomes nearly laughable. He positions himself observing shattered containers and strands of fur within storage sheds as a fusion of Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – with Jussi a rather hapless assistant figure (none of whom were required to taste a blend of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to agree that, yes, it was clearly dried blood at the crime scene), before announcing his newest conclusion and pulling a corpse from a bog.
Clashing Agendas
The village elite are determined demonstrating that the maid met her end by a bear, perhaps to protect the calm, perhaps to protect one of their own. The pastor is bent on proving otherwise, and the proof so quickly stacks up supporting his view that again the show’s credibility and audience tolerance get strained. At its best, the series evokes memories of the adaptation some years back of the author’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the competing allures and fears offered by rational thought and belief. At its worst, it’s more like Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Nevertheless, it does seem to offer the answer to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”
To Cook a Bear is on Disney+ currently.
