A intense debate recently went viral across online platforms, after someone asked a query to women: which would you prefer find yourself stranded in the woods with a man or with a bear? Like all the most engaging thought experiments, it exposed vastly opposing perspectives and life encounters, highlighted chasms between the sexes, and was likely cause an existential crisis if you thought on it for too long. There was also the predictable follow-up in which some males took to the internet to inform women how stupid they had been for choosing the animal and proceeded to describe the punishments they deserved for that choice. This at least enabled those females who were uncertain about their decision to decide with renewed assurance.
Dramatising the Scenario
To Cook a Bear effectively brings to life this nifty small premise. The six-part drama is adapted on Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s 2018 book of the same name (rendered in 2020 for English readers). It follows the tribulations of a pastor (the lead actor) and his household as they come to start a new ministry in Kengis, an isolated village in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. Within a community lacking many joys, none of the inhabitants particularly appreciate his strict approach to alcohol and revelry, but it is his defense of the poor – particularly the native Sami population, from among whom hails the preacher’s adopted son the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in societal fairness and equality that places him in direct opposition against the Kengis local authorities.
The Antagonists
Quickly in cahoots against him are the sheriff the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen initially dismissing a newly injured worker with minimal compensation while he is still babbling upon seeing his crushed hand, and anyone else who profit from a community who can be bought for a few bottles of the whisky sold by the creepy store owner the merchant Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). However, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes when itinerant painter Beronius arrives on the scene (the performer, providing an acting turn of rare unsettling intensity). If they are – like the pastor himself – only a little more than caricatures, they still serve as potent archetypes.
Plot Progression
Once the foundations of conflict sown, the moment arrives to get down with the storyline. The servant from the doctor’s house, Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), accordingly goes missing from the woods. Indications of her escape and animal scratches on a tree get discovered yet she remains completely absent. Rumours and fears of a man/maid-eating bear prowling the woods spread, but the pastor holds a different view which he and his ward set out to prove.
A Strange Creation
This Bear Drama is a somewhat peculiar show. It creates a fine sense of the bleakness that allows suspicion and prejudice and dark myths flourish based on local folklore that animals can be controlled or possessed by the souls of humans. And it doesn’t romanticise the tough existence experienced by the residents, where brutality, whether that of nature or people, lurks constantly on the edges, poised to explode. But the characters seldom evolve beyond symbols – or perhaps, as the struggles between justice and vengeance, logic and religion, virtue and wickedness intensify, emblematic figures in a fable – preventing the entire production fully coming to life.
Stylistic Shifts
Additionally, exist the many tonally jarring instances where the pastor’s ability to discover clues and determine the maid’s destiny becomes almost risible. He positions himself observing shattered containers and strands of fur within storage sheds like a combined Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (neither of whom were required to lick a mixture of blood spatter and the boss’s spit to agree that indeed, it was clearly coagulated blood on the site), before announcing his newest conclusion and pulling a body out of a swamp.
Opposing Goals
The village elite are determined demonstrating that Hilda was killed by a bear, maybe to preserve the peace, perhaps to shield one of their own. The pastor is bent on proving otherwise, and the evidence so quickly stacks up supporting his view that again 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, with its evocation of the competing attractions and fears presented by science and belief. At its worst, it’s more like Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it appears to provide the answer to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”
The series streams on Disney+ now.
