A heated discussion lately went viral on social media, after a user posed a query to women: would you rather be lost in the woods alongside a male or a bear? Like all the best thought experiments, it exposed vastly opposing perspectives and experiences, illuminated divides between the sexes, and was likely to induce a deep personal dilemma 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 stupid they were for choosing the bear and proceeded to describe the punishments they deserved for that choice. This at minimum allowed those females who were uncertain about their decision to decide with a new confidence.
Dramatising the Scenario
To Cook a Bear skillfully dramatises this nifty small premise. The six-part drama is based from Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s 2018 novel with the identical title (rendered two years later for an English audience). It traces the struggles of a pastor (the lead actor) and his household when they arrive to start a fresh religious post within Kengis, a remote settlement in Sweden’s north, in 1852. In a place lacking many joys, not one of the inhabitants especially warm to his puritanical approach to drinking and revelry, but it is his protection of the poor – especially the indigenous Sami, from among whom comes the pastor’s adopted son the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his belief in societal fairness and equality that sets him in direct opposition against the Kengis local authorities.
The Opposing Forces
Quickly collaborating against him are the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the intimidating mill owner the matron Sjödahl (the actress), observed early on firing a recently mangled worker with a month’s pay while he is still babbling at the sight his crushed hand, and all others who profit from a populace who can be bought for a few bottles of the whisky sold by the unsettling store owner Lindmark (the actor). Although, to be fair, Lindmark’s eeriness pales when itinerant painter Beronius appears in the story (the performer, providing a performance of exceptional discomfiting power). While they remain – like the pastor himself – only a little more than caricatures, they are at least effective ones.
Narrative Development
Once the foundations of tension sown, it is time to get down with the storyline. The maid from the doctor’s house, Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), duly goes missing from the woods. Signs of her flight and bear markings on a tree are found but she is nowhere to be seen. Rumours and anxieties regarding a human-devouring bear roaming the woods circulate, yet the clergyman holds a different view that he and Jussi embark to verify.
A Strange Creation
This Bear Drama is a slightly odd beast. It conjures a strong impression of the desolation that allows suspicion and prejudice and grim legends thrive from the native legend that bears can be controlled or inhabited by the spirits of men. It avoids romanticise the tough existence experienced by the villagers, in which brutality, whether that of nature or people, lurks constantly on the edges, waiting to erupt. Yet the personas rarely become beyond symbols – or maybe, while the conflicts between justice and vengeance, logic and religion, virtue and wickedness escalate, representative characters within a moral tale – which stops the entire production fully coming to life.
Stylistic Shifts
Additionally, there are numerous tonally jarring instances in which the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and discern the maid’s destiny becomes nearly laughable. He stands looking at shattered containers and strands of fur within storage sheds like a combined the Belgian detective the English sleuth – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (neither of whom had to lick a mixture of blood spatter and the boss’s spit to confirm that, yes, it was clearly dried blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his latest deduction and extracting a corpse from a bog.
Opposing Goals
The local leaders are determined demonstrating that the maid met her end by a bear, maybe to protect the peace, or possibly to protect one of their own. The pastor is intent on establishing otherwise, and the proof so quickly accumulates in his favour that once more the drama’s plausibility and the viewer’s patience get strained. At its best, To Cook a Bear evokes memories of the adaptation some years back of the author’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the competing attractions and terrors presented by rational thought and religion. In its low points, it resembles a bear-themed police procedural. Still, it does seem to provide the answer to the earlier query: “Females, choose the animal.”
To Cook a Bear is on Disney+ now.
