An heated debate lately spread widely across online platforms, following someone asked a query for females: which would you prefer find yourself stranded in a forest with a man or with a bear? Similar to the best hypothetical scenarios, it revealed vastly opposing worldviews and experiences, highlighted divides between the sexes, and was likely cause an existential crisis for anyone pondering on it for too long. Additionally, there came the predictable coda where some males came online to tell women how stupid they had been for choosing the bear and proceeded to limn the punishments they merited for that choice. This at minimum enabled the women who had been hesitating about their decision to decide with renewed assurance.
Dramatising the Setup
To Cook a Bear effectively brings to life this nifty small premise. This six-episode drama is based from Scandinavian writer Mikael Niemi’s 2018 novel of the same name (translated two years later for an English audience). It follows the tribulations of a clergyman (the lead actor) and his family as they come to start a fresh religious post in Kengis, a remote village in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. Within a community lacking many joys, none of the inhabitants particularly warm to his strict stance on drinking and revelry, but it is his protection of the poor – especially the indigenous Sami, from which comes the pastor’s adopted son the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his conviction in societal fairness and equality that places him in direct opposition against the Kengis local authorities.
The Antagonists
Quickly collaborating against him are the sheriff the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (the actress), observed initially dismissing a newly injured worker with a month’s pay as he remains babbling at the sight his crushed hand, and anyone else who profit from a community who can be bought with some containers of the whisky sold by the unsettling shopkeeper Lindmark (the actor). However, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness pales once itinerant painter Beronius appears in the story (Simon J Berger, delivering a performance of exceptional discomfiting power). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – only a little more being stereotypes, they still serve as effective ones.
Plot Progression
Once the foundations of tension sown, the moment arrives to proceed with the storyline. The maid from the doctor’s house, Hilda (the actress), accordingly goes missing from the woods. Indications of her escape and animal scratches on a tree are found but she is nowhere to be seen. Gossip and fears regarding a human-devouring bear roaming the woods spread, yet the clergyman holds a different view which he and his ward set out to prove.
An Odd Beast
This Bear Drama is a somewhat peculiar show. It conjures a fine sense of the bleakness that allows suspicion and prejudice and grim legends thrive based on local folklore that animals might be dominated or possessed by the souls of men. It avoids idealising the hardscrabble life led by the residents, in which violence, whether that of nature or mankind, always looms on the edges, poised to explode. Yet the personas seldom evolve beyond symbols – or perhaps, as the struggles between justice and revenge, rationality and faith, good and evil intensify, emblematic figures within a moral tale – preventing the entire production truly becoming immersive.
Tonal Inconsistencies
And then, there are the many stylistically clashing moments in which the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and discern the maid’s destiny becomes almost risible. He stands observing shattered containers and clumps of hair within storage sheds as a fusion of Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – alongside Jussi a rather hapless Hastings-cum-Watson (none of whom were required to taste a mixture of blood droplets and the boss’s spit to agree that, yes, it was definitely dried blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his latest deduction and pulling a corpse out of a swamp.
Opposing Goals
The local leaders are determined proving that Hilda met her end by an animal, maybe to preserve the peace, perhaps to shield a fellow elite. The pastor is bent on proving the opposite, and the proof so quickly accumulates supporting his view that once more the drama’s plausibility and audience tolerance are tested. At its best, the series evokes memories of the TV version some years back of the author’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the competing allures and fears offered by science and religion. In its low points, it resembles a bear-themed police procedural. Still, it appears to provide the answer to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”
The series streams on Disney+ currently.
