An heated discussion lately went viral across online platforms, following a user posed a query for females: would you rather be lost in a forest with a man or with a bear? Similar to the most engaging thought experiments, it exposed wildly different perspectives and life encounters, illuminated divides among genders, and could easily cause a deep personal dilemma for anyone pondering on it for too long. There was also the almost inevitable coda where men of a certain stripe came online to inform women how stupid they had been to select the animal and proceeded to describe the consequences they deserved for it. This at minimum allowed the women who were uncertain about their decision to make it with renewed assurance.
Dramatising the Scenario
To Cook a Bear effectively brings to life this clever small premise. The six-part series is adapted from Swedish author the novelist’s 2018 novel with the identical title (rendered two years later for English readers). It follows the struggles of a pastor (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his family as they come to start a new ministry within Kengis, an isolated village in Sweden’s north, during the mid-19th century. In a place with few pleasures, none of the inhabitants particularly appreciate his strict approach to drinking and dancing, but it is his defense of the poor – especially the indigenous Sami, from which hails the preacher’s foster child the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his conviction in societal fairness and equal rights that sets him in direct opposition against the Kengis local authorities.
The Opposing Forces
Quickly collaborating opposing him include the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the intimidating factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed early on firing a recently mangled laborer with a month’s pay while he is still babbling upon seeing of his pulped hand, and all others who benefit from a populace easily swayed for a few bottles of liquor sold by the unsettling store owner Lindmark (the actor). However, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes when travelling artist Beronius appears on the scene (the performer, providing a performance of exceptional discomfiting power). If they are – like the pastor himself – only a little more than caricatures, they are at least effective ones.
Narrative Development
Once the foundations of tension sown, it is time to proceed to narrative business. The servant employed by the doctor, Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), accordingly goes missing in the forest. Signs of her escape and animal scratches upon a trunk get discovered yet she remains completely absent. Rumours and fears of a man/maid-eating bear prowling the woods spread, but the pastor has another theory which he and his ward embark to verify.
A Strange Creation
To Cook a Bear is a slightly peculiar show. It conjures a strong impression of the bleakness that allows distrust and prejudice and dark myths flourish based on local folklore that bears might be dominated or inhabited by the spirits of men. It avoids romanticise the hardscrabble life led by the residents, where brutality, be it from nature or people, always looms on the edges, waiting to erupt. Yet the personas rarely become more than ciphers – or perhaps, as the struggles amid fairness and revenge, rationality and faith, good and evil intensify, representative characters within a moral tale – which stops the whole thing truly coming to life.
Stylistic Shifts
Additionally, exist numerous tonally jarring instances where the pastor’s ability to discover clues and determine the maid’s destiny becomes nearly laughable. He stands looking at shattered containers and clumps of hair within storage sheds like a combined the Belgian detective and Sherlock Holmes – alongside Jussi a rather hapless assistant figure (neither of whom had to taste a blend of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to agree that indeed, it was definitely dried blood at the crime scene), before announcing his latest deduction and pulling a body from a bog.
Opposing Goals
The local leaders are determined proving that the maid was killed by an animal, maybe to protect the peace, perhaps to protect a fellow elite. The pastor is bent on establishing the opposite, and the proof so rapidly stacks up supporting his view that again the drama’s plausibility and audience tolerance get strained. In its finest moments, To Cook a Bear is reminiscent of the TV version some years back of Sarah Perry’s The Essex Serpent, through its portrayal of the competing attractions and fears offered by rational thought and religion. At its worst, it’s more like a bear-themed police procedural. Still, it appears to offer the answer to that debated question: “Females, choose the animal.”
To Cook a Bear is on Disney+ currently.
