A intense discussion recently went viral across online platforms, after someone asked the question to women: which would you prefer be lost in a forest with a man or with a bear? Like all the most engaging hypothetical scenarios, it exposed vastly opposing perspectives and life encounters, illuminated chasms between the sexes, and was likely cause an existential crisis if you thought on it extensively. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable follow-up in which men of a certain stripe came online to inform women how stupid they had been for choosing the bear and went on to describe the punishments they deserved for it. This at least allowed the women who were uncertain over their choice to decide with renewed assurance.
Portraying the Scenario
To Cook a Bear skillfully brings to life this clever little setup. This six-episode drama is adapted on Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s 2018 novel of the same name (rendered in 2020 for English readers). It traces the tribulations of a clergyman (the lead actor) and his family as they come to begin a new ministry within Kengis, an isolated settlement in northern Sweden, in 1852. Within a community lacking many joys, not one of the inhabitants particularly warm to his puritanical approach to drinking and revelry, yet it is his protection of impoverished people – especially the indigenous Sami, from which comes the preacher’s foster child the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in social justice and equality that sets him on a collision course against the Kengis local authorities.
The Opposing Forces
Quickly collaborating against him are the lawman Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed initially firing a newly injured laborer with a month’s pay while he is still gibbering at the sight his crushed hand, and all others who benefit from a populace easily swayed with some containers of liquor provided by the creepy store owner the merchant Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). However, to be fair, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes when itinerant painter Beronius appears on the scene (the performer, delivering an acting turn of rare unsettling intensity). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, they are at least effective ones.
Plot Progression
Once the foundations of conflict planted, the moment arrives to proceed with the storyline. The servant from the doctor’s house, Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), accordingly vanishes in the forest. Signs of her escape and bear markings upon a trunk get discovered yet she remains completely absent. Gossip and fears of a man/maid-eating bear roaming the woods circulate, but the pastor has another theory which he and his ward set out to verify.
A Strange Creation
This Bear Drama is a slightly peculiar show. It creates a strong impression of the desolation that allows distrust and prejudice and grim legends thrive from the native legend that bears might be dominated or inhabited by the souls of men. And it doesn’t romanticise the tough existence experienced by the villagers, where brutality, whether that of the wild or mankind, lurks constantly at the periphery, poised to explode. But the characters seldom evolve beyond symbols – or perhaps, as the struggles amid fairness and vengeance, rationality and faith, good and evil intensify, emblematic figures in a fable – preventing the entire production truly coming to life.
Tonal Inconsistencies
And then, there are numerous tonally jarring instances where the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and discern Hilda’s fate turns nearly laughable. He stands observing shattered containers and strands of fur within storage sheds like a combined the Belgian detective the English sleuth – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (neither of whom had to lick a blend of blood droplets and the boss’s spit to confirm that indeed, it was definitely coagulated blood on the site), prior to declaring his latest deduction and pulling a corpse from a bog.
Opposing Goals
The local leaders are determined proving that the maid met her end by a bear, perhaps to preserve the calm, or possibly to shield a fellow elite. The pastor is intent on proving the opposite, and the proof so quickly accumulates in his favour that again the drama’s plausibility and audience tolerance 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 opposing allures and terrors presented by rational thought and religion. At its worst, it resembles a bear-themed police procedural. Still, it does seem to offer the response to that debated question: “Females, choose the animal.”
To Cook a Bear is on Disney+ now.
