🔗 Share this article

A heated discussion lately went viral on social media, after a user posed the question to women: would you rather find yourself stranded in the woods alongside a male or with a bear? Like all the most engaging hypothetical scenarios, it exposed vastly opposing perspectives and experiences, highlighted divides between the sexes, and could easily to induce an existential crisis if you thought on it extensively. There was also the almost inevitable follow-up in which men of a certain stripe came online to tell females how foolish they were for choosing the animal and went on to limn the punishments they deserved for it. This at minimum allowed the women who were uncertain over their choice to decide with a new confidence.

Dramatising the Scenario

To Cook a Bear effectively brings to life this clever small premise. This six-episode drama is based from Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s 2018 novel with the identical title (rendered in 2020 for an English audience). It traces the struggles of a clergyman (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his household when they arrive to start a new ministry within Kengis, an isolated village in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. In a place with few pleasures, not one of the inhabitants especially appreciate his strict stance on drinking and revelry, yet it is his defense of impoverished people – especially the indigenous Sami, from which hails the pastor’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 local authorities.

The Antagonists

Soon in cahoots opposing him include the sheriff the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen early on firing a recently mangled laborer with a month’s pay while he is still babbling at the sight of his pulped hand, and all others who benefit from a community who can be bought with some containers of liquor provided by the unsettling shopkeeper Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). However, to be fair, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes once travelling artist the artist Beronius appears in the story (the performer, delivering an acting turn of rare discomfiting power). While they remain – like the pastor himself – only a little more than caricatures, they are at least potent archetypes.

Plot Progression

With the seeds of conflict planted, it is time to proceed with the storyline. The maid employed by the doctor, Hilda (the actress), accordingly goes missing in the forest. Indications of her escape and animal scratches on a tree are found but she is completely absent. Rumours and anxieties regarding a human-devouring beast prowling the woodland circulate, yet the clergyman has another theory that he and Jussi set out to verify.

A Strange Creation

This Bear Drama is a somewhat odd beast. It creates a strong impression of the desolation that allows distrust and prejudice and dark myths flourish from the native legend that animals can be controlled or possessed by the souls of humans. And it doesn’t romanticise the hardscrabble life experienced by the villagers, where violence, be it from nature or people, lurks constantly on the edges, waiting to erupt. But the characters rarely become beyond symbols – or maybe, while the conflicts between justice and vengeance, logic and faith, good and wickedness escalate, representative characters within a moral tale – which stops the entire production truly coming to life.

Stylistic Shifts

Additionally, exist the many stylistically clashing instances in which the pastor’s ability to discover clues and discern Hilda’s fate turns nearly laughable. He stands looking at broken milk pots and strands of fur in hay barns like a combined Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – alongside Jussi a rather hapless assistant figure (neither of whom were required to taste a blend of blood droplets and saliva from his superior to confirm that, yes, it was definitely dried blood on the site), before announcing his newest conclusion and extracting a corpse from a bog.

Opposing Goals

The local leaders are determined demonstrating that Hilda met her end by an animal, perhaps to protect the peace, or possibly to protect one of their own. The pastor is intent on proving the opposite, and the evidence so rapidly stacks up supporting his view that again the drama’s plausibility and the viewer’s patience get strained. At its best, To Cook a Bear is reminiscent of the TV version a few years ago of Sarah Perry’s The Essex Serpent, with its evocation of the competing allures and fears presented by rational thought 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: “Females, choose the animal.”

• To Cook a Bear is on Disney+ currently.