A intense discussion recently went viral on social media, after someone asked the question for females: which would you prefer find yourself stranded in the woods alongside a male or with a bear? Similar to the best hypothetical scenarios, it exposed vastly opposing perspectives and life encounters, illuminated chasms among genders, and could easily to induce a deep personal dilemma for anyone pondering about it for too long. There was also the almost inevitable coda in which men of a certain stripe took to the internet to inform women how stupid they were to select the bear and proceeded to describe the punishments they merited for that choice. This at least allowed those females who were uncertain about their decision to make it with renewed assurance.
Portraying the Scenario
To Cook a Bear effectively dramatises this clever small premise. This six-episode drama is based from Swedish author the novelist’s 2018 novel of the same name (translated two years later for English readers). It follows the tribulations of a pastor (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his family when they arrive to begin a fresh religious post within Kengis, a remote village in northern Sweden, in 1852. In a place with few pleasures, not one of the inhabitants particularly appreciate his puritanical stance on drinking and revelry, yet it is his defense of impoverished people – especially the native Sami population, from among whom comes the preacher’s foster child Jussi (the young actor) – and his conviction in societal fairness and equal rights that sets him on a collision course against the Kengis powers that be.
The Opposing Forces
Soon in cahoots opposing him include the lawman Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the fearsome factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed initially firing a newly injured laborer with a month’s pay as he remains gibbering upon seeing his crushed hand, and anyone else who profit from a populace who can be bought for a few bottles of the whisky provided by the creepy shopkeeper Lindmark (the actor). However, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness pales when travelling artist the artist Beronius arrives 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 still serve as effective ones.
Plot Progression
With the seeds of conflict planted, the moment arrives to get down with the storyline. The servant employed by the doctor, Hilda (the actress), duly vanishes from the woods. Signs of her flight and bear markings upon a trunk get discovered but she is completely absent. Gossip and anxieties of a man/maid-eating bear prowling the woods circulate, yet the clergyman has another theory that he and Jussi set out to prove.
A Strange Creation
To Cook a Bear is a slightly odd beast. It creates a strong impression of the desolation that allows suspicion and bias and grim legends flourish from the native legend that bears might be dominated or inhabited by the souls of men. And it doesn’t idealising the tough existence experienced by the residents, in which violence, whether that of nature or people, lurks constantly on the edges, waiting to erupt. Yet the personas rarely become more than ciphers – or perhaps, while the conflicts between justice and vengeance, logic and religion, virtue and wickedness escalate, emblematic figures in a fable – which stops the entire production truly becoming immersive.
Tonal Inconsistencies
Additionally, exist numerous tonally jarring instances where the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and determine the maid’s destiny becomes almost risible. He stands looking at broken milk pots and clumps of hair within storage sheds like a combined Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – with Jussi a rather hapless assistant figure (neither of whom had to lick a blend of blood droplets and saliva from his superior to confirm that, yes, it was clearly coagulated blood on the site), prior to declaring his latest deduction and pulling a corpse from a bog.
Clashing Agendas
The local leaders are bent on proving that the maid was killed by a bear, perhaps to preserve the calm, perhaps to protect one of their own. The clergyman is intent on proving the opposite, and the evidence so rapidly accumulates supporting his view that once more the show’s credibility and the viewer’s patience are tested. In its finest moments, the series evokes memories of the TV version a few years ago of the author’s The Essex Serpent, through its portrayal of the competing attractions and fears offered by science and belief. At its worst, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Nevertheless, it does seem to provide the answer to the earlier query: “Females, choose the animal.”
The series streams on Disney+ currently.
