🔗 Share this article

An heated debate lately went viral across online platforms, following a user posed the question to women: which would you prefer find yourself stranded in the woods alongside a male or with a bear? Like all the best hypothetical scenarios, it revealed wildly different perspectives and experiences, illuminated chasms among genders, and was likely cause an existential crisis for anyone pondering on it extensively. Additionally, there came the predictable coda in which some males came online to inform females how stupid they had been for choosing the animal and went on to limn the punishments they deserved for it. This at least enabled those females who were uncertain over their choice to decide with a new confidence.

Dramatising the Setup

To Cook a Bear skillfully brings to life this clever little setup. The six-part series is based from Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s 2018 novel of the same name (rendered two years later for English readers). It follows the struggles of a clergyman (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his family when they arrive to begin a fresh religious post in Kengis, a remote settlement in Sweden’s north, during the mid-19th century. Within a community lacking many joys, none of the inhabitants especially appreciate his puritanical stance on alcohol and dancing, yet it is his defense of the poor – particularly the indigenous Sami, from among whom comes the pastor’s foster child the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his belief in societal fairness and equality that sets him in direct opposition against the Kengis local authorities.

The Antagonists

Soon collaborating opposing him are the sheriff the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the fearsome mill owner Madam Sjödahl (the actress), seen initially dismissing a recently mangled worker with a month’s pay while he is still gibbering upon seeing his crushed hand, and all others who profit from a community who can be bought with some containers of liquor provided by the unsettling shopkeeper Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, to be fair, Lindmark’s eeriness pales once travelling artist Beronius appears on the scene (the performer, providing an acting turn of exceptional unsettling intensity). While they remain – like the pastor himself – only a little more than caricatures, they are at least potent archetypes.

Narrative Development

Once the foundations of tension planted, it is time to proceed to narrative business. The maid employed by the doctor, Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), accordingly goes missing from the woods. Indications of her escape and animal scratches upon a trunk get discovered but she is nowhere to be seen. Gossip and fears of a man/maid-eating bear roaming the woods circulate, but the pastor holds a different view which he and his ward set out to verify.

An Odd Beast

To Cook a Bear is a slightly odd beast. It creates a strong impression of the bleakness that allows distrust and bias and dark myths thrive from the native legend that animals can be controlled or possessed by the souls of men. It avoids idealising the hardscrabble life led by the villagers, in which violence, whether that of nature or mankind, lurks constantly at the periphery, poised to explode. But the characters rarely become beyond symbols – or maybe, while the conflicts amid fairness and revenge, rationality and faith, virtue and evil intensify, representative characters within a moral tale – which stops the whole thing fully coming to life.

Tonal Inconsistencies

Additionally, there are numerous tonally jarring moments where the clergyman’s skill to discover clues and discern Hilda’s fate turns nearly laughable. He stands observing shattered containers and clumps of hair in hay barns as a fusion of the Belgian detective and Sherlock Holmes – with Jussi a rather hapless assistant figure (none of whom were required to taste a blend of blood droplets and the boss’s spit to confirm that indeed, it was definitely coagulated blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his latest deduction and extracting a corpse from a bog.

Clashing Agendas

The local leaders are bent on demonstrating that the maid met her end by an animal, perhaps to preserve the calm, perhaps to protect a fellow elite. The clergyman is intent on establishing the opposite, and the proof so rapidly accumulates supporting his view that again the drama’s plausibility and audience tolerance get strained. At its best, the series is reminiscent of the TV version some years back of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the competing attractions and fears presented by science and religion. At its worst, it’s more like Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Nevertheless, it does seem to provide the answer to the earlier query: “Females, choose the animal.”

• To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ currently.