A heated debate lately went viral across online platforms, after someone asked the question for females: would you rather find yourself stranded in a forest alongside a male or a bear? Like all the most engaging thought experiments, it revealed wildly different perspectives and life encounters, illuminated chasms among genders, and was likely to induce an existential crisis for anyone pondering on it for too long. There was also the almost inevitable coda where men of a certain stripe took to the internet to inform females how foolish they had been for choosing the bear and went on to limn the consequences they merited for it. This at least allowed those females who had been hesitating about their decision to decide with a new confidence.
Portraying the Setup
To Cook a Bear effectively dramatises this nifty little setup. This six-episode drama is based from Scandinavian writer the novelist’s 2018 book of the same name (rendered two years later for an English audience). It follows the tribulations of a clergyman (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his household as they come to begin a new ministry within Kengis, an isolated village in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. Within a community with few pleasures, not one of the inhabitants especially appreciate his strict approach to alcohol and dancing, but it is his defense of the poor – especially the indigenous Sami, from which hails the preacher’s foster child Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his belief in social justice and equal rights that sets him on a collision course against the Kengis local authorities.
The Opposing Forces
Soon collaborating opposing him are the lawman Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the fearsome mill owner the matron Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen initially firing a newly injured worker with a month’s pay as he remains babbling upon seeing of his pulped hand, and all others who profit from a community who can be bought with some containers of liquor sold by the creepy store owner the merchant Lindmark (the actor). However, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness pales when travelling artist Beronius arrives on the scene (the performer, providing a performance of rare unsettling intensity). If they are – similar to the clergyman – only a little more than caricatures, they are at least potent archetypes.
Narrative Development
With the seeds of tension sown, it is time to proceed to narrative business. The maid from the doctor’s house, Hilda (the actress), accordingly vanishes from the woods. Signs of her flight and bear markings upon a trunk are found yet she remains nowhere to be seen. Gossip and fears regarding a human-devouring bear roaming the woodland circulate, but the pastor has another theory which he and his ward embark to verify.
An Odd Beast
This Bear Drama is a slightly peculiar show. It conjures a strong impression of the bleakness that lets distrust and prejudice and dark myths flourish based on local folklore that bears might be dominated or inhabited by the souls of humans. It avoids idealising the tough existence experienced by the villagers, in which brutality, be it from nature or mankind, lurks constantly on the edges, poised to explode. But the characters rarely become more than ciphers – or perhaps, while the conflicts between justice and vengeance, logic and faith, good and wickedness intensify, emblematic figures in a fable – preventing the entire production truly coming to life.
Tonal Inconsistencies
And then, exist numerous tonally jarring instances in which the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and discern the maid’s destiny turns nearly laughable. He positions himself looking at broken milk pots and clumps of hair in hay barns like a combined Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (none of whom were required to lick a blend of blood droplets and saliva from his superior to confirm that, yes, it was definitely coagulated blood on the site), before announcing his latest deduction and extracting a corpse out of a swamp.
Clashing Agendas
The village elite are determined proving that Hilda met her end by an animal, perhaps to protect the peace, perhaps to protect one of their own. The pastor is intent on establishing otherwise, and the evidence so quickly accumulates in his favour that again the show’s credibility and audience tolerance get strained. In its finest moments, To Cook a Bear evokes memories of the adaptation a few years ago of Sarah Perry’s The Essex Serpent, through its portrayal of the competing attractions and fears offered by rational thought and religion. In its low points, it’s more like Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Nevertheless, it does seem to offer the response to the earlier query: “Females, choose the animal.”
The series streams on Disney+ currently.
