A heated debate lately spread widely across online platforms, after a user posed the question to women: would you rather be lost in a forest with a man or with a bear? Similar to the best hypothetical scenarios, it exposed wildly different worldviews and experiences, illuminated chasms among genders, and could easily cause a deep personal dilemma if you thought about it extensively. There was also the predictable coda in which men of a certain stripe came online to tell women how foolish they were for choosing the bear and went on to limn the consequences they deserved for that choice. This at least enabled those females who had been hesitating over their choice to make it with renewed assurance.
Dramatising the Scenario
To Cook a Bear effectively brings to life this nifty little setup. This six-episode drama is based on Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s 2018 novel of the same name (rendered in 2020 for English readers). It follows the struggles 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, in 1852. In a place with few pleasures, none of the inhabitants particularly appreciate his puritanical approach to drinking and dancing, yet it is his protection of the poor – particularly the indigenous Sami, from among whom comes the preacher’s foster child the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his conviction in societal fairness and equal rights that places him on a collision course against the Kengis local authorities.
The Opposing Forces
Soon collaborating against him are the sheriff the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the fearsome factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (the actress), seen early on firing a recently mangled laborer with a month’s pay as he remains babbling at the sight his crushed hand, and all others who benefit from a populace who can be bought with some containers of liquor provided by the unsettling store owner Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness pales once travelling artist Beronius arrives on the scene (the performer, providing an acting turn of exceptional discomfiting power). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond than caricatures, they are at least effective ones.
Plot Progression
Once the foundations of tension planted, the moment arrives to get down with the storyline. The maid from the doctor’s house, Hilda (the actress), duly goes missing from the woods. Signs of her flight and animal scratches on a tree are found but she is nowhere to be seen. Gossip and anxieties regarding a human-devouring bear roaming the woodland circulate, yet the clergyman holds a different view that he and Jussi embark to verify.
A Strange Creation
This Bear Drama is a slightly peculiar show. It creates a strong impression of the desolation that allows suspicion and bias and grim legends thrive from the native legend that animals might be dominated or inhabited by the spirits of humans. It avoids romanticise the tough existence led by the villagers, where violence, be it from nature or mankind, lurks constantly at the periphery, poised to explode. But the characters seldom evolve beyond symbols – or maybe, as the struggles between justice and revenge, rationality and faith, good and evil intensify, emblematic figures in a fable – preventing the whole thing truly becoming immersive.
Stylistic Shifts
And then, there are the many stylistically clashing instances where the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and discern the maid’s destiny turns almost risible. He stands looking at broken milk pots and clumps of hair in hay barns like a combined the Belgian detective the English sleuth – with Jussi a rather hapless assistant figure (none of whom had to lick a mixture of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to confirm that, yes, it was clearly coagulated blood on the site), before announcing his latest deduction and pulling a body from a bog.
Opposing Goals
The local leaders are bent on demonstrating that the maid was killed by an animal, maybe to protect the peace, perhaps to protect one of their own. The clergyman is bent on establishing otherwise, and the evidence so rapidly accumulates supporting his view that once more the drama’s plausibility and the viewer’s patience get strained. At its best, the series is reminiscent of the TV version a few years ago of the author’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the competing allures and terrors offered by science and religion. At its worst, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Nevertheless, it appears to offer the answer to that debated question: “Ladies, take the bear.”
The series streams on Disney+ currently.
