A heated debate lately spread widely on social media, following a user asked a query to women: which would you prefer be lost in the woods alongside a male or with a bear? Similar to the best hypothetical scenarios, it exposed wildly different worldviews and life encounters, highlighted chasms between the sexes, and was likely cause a deep personal dilemma if you thought on it for too long. There was also the almost inevitable coda in which men of a certain stripe came online to inform females how stupid they had been for choosing the bear and went on to describe the consequences they merited for it. This at minimum allowed the women who had been hesitating about their decision to make it with renewed assurance.
Dramatising the Setup
To Cook a Bear skillfully dramatises this clever small premise. This six-episode drama is based on Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s 2018 novel of the same name (translated in 2020 for an English audience). It traces the tribulations of a pastor (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his household as they come to begin a fresh religious post in Kengis, an isolated village in northern Sweden, in 1852. Within a community lacking many joys, none of the inhabitants especially appreciate his puritanical approach to alcohol and dancing, yet it is his defense of the poor – especially the native Sami population, from which hails the preacher’s adopted son Jussi (the young actor) – and his conviction in societal fairness and equality that sets him on a collision course with the Kengis powers that be.
The Opposing Forces
Soon collaborating opposing him are the lawman Brahe (the performer), the fearsome mill owner Madam Sjödahl (the actress), observed early on dismissing a newly injured worker with minimal compensation while he is still gibbering upon seeing his crushed hand, and all others who profit from a community easily swayed with some containers of liquor sold by the creepy shopkeeper the merchant Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes once travelling artist Beronius appears on the scene (the performer, delivering a performance of exceptional unsettling intensity). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – only a little more being stereotypes, they still serve as potent archetypes.
Narrative Development
Once the foundations of tension planted, the moment arrives to proceed to narrative business. The maid employed by the doctor, the character Hilda (the actress), accordingly goes missing from the woods. Signs of her flight and bear markings on a tree get discovered but she is nowhere to be seen. Rumours and anxieties of a man/maid-eating bear prowling the woodland circulate, yet the clergyman holds a different view which he and his ward embark to prove.
A Strange Creation
This Bear Drama is a slightly peculiar show. It conjures a strong impression of the desolation that lets suspicion and prejudice and dark myths flourish based on local folklore that animals might be dominated or inhabited by the spirits of humans. And it doesn’t romanticise the hardscrabble life experienced by the villagers, where violence, whether that of the wild or people, always looms at the periphery, poised to explode. Yet the personas seldom evolve more than ciphers – or maybe, while the conflicts amid fairness and revenge, logic and religion, virtue and wickedness escalate, emblematic figures in a fable – which stops the entire production fully coming to life.
Tonal Inconsistencies
And then, there are numerous tonally jarring instances in which the clergyman’s skill to discover clues and determine the maid’s destiny turns nearly laughable. He positions himself looking at shattered containers and clumps of hair within storage sheds like a combined Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – alongside 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 indeed, it was definitely coagulated blood at the crime scene), before announcing his newest conclusion and extracting a body from a bog.
Clashing Agendas
The village elite are determined proving that Hilda was killed by an animal, perhaps to preserve the peace, or possibly to shield a fellow elite. The pastor is bent on proving the opposite, and the proof so rapidly stacks up supporting his view that once more the show’s credibility and the viewer’s patience are tested. At its best, the series evokes memories of the TV version a few years ago of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the opposing attractions and fears presented by science and belief. At its worst, it’s more like a bear-themed police procedural. Still, it appears to offer the answer to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”
To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ now.
