A heated debate recently 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? Similar to the most engaging thought experiments, it revealed vastly opposing perspectives and experiences, highlighted divides among genders, and could easily to induce an existential crisis for anyone pondering about it extensively. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable coda where some males took to the internet to inform women how stupid they had been to select the bear and proceeded to limn the consequences they merited for that choice. This at minimum enabled those females who were uncertain over their choice to decide with a new confidence.
Portraying the Setup
To Cook a Bear effectively brings to life this clever small premise. The six-part drama is adapted on Swedish author the novelist’s 2018 novel with the identical title (rendered two years later for English readers). It traces the tribulations of a clergyman (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his household as they come to start a new ministry in Kengis, an isolated settlement in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. Within a community lacking many joys, none of the locals particularly appreciate his puritanical stance on drinking and revelry, but it is his defense of impoverished people – particularly the indigenous Sami, from among whom hails the preacher’s foster child the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his belief in social justice and equality that sets him in direct opposition against the Kengis powers that be.
The Antagonists
Quickly in cahoots against him include the sheriff the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the intimidating mill owner 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 his crushed hand, and all others who profit from a community who can be bought for a few bottles of liquor provided by the creepy shopkeeper the merchant Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). However, to be fair, Lindmark’s eeriness pales when itinerant painter Beronius appears in the story (the performer, delivering an acting turn of rare discomfiting power). If they are – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, they are at least potent archetypes.
Narrative Development
Once the foundations of conflict planted, the moment arrives to proceed with the storyline. The maid from the doctor’s house, the character Hilda (the actress), duly vanishes in the forest. Indications of her flight and animal scratches upon a trunk get discovered yet she remains completely absent. Rumours and anxieties regarding a human-devouring bear prowling the woodland circulate, yet the clergyman has another theory that he and Jussi set out to prove.
An Odd Beast
To Cook a Bear is a slightly odd beast. It creates a fine sense of the desolation that allows suspicion and prejudice and grim legends flourish from the native legend that animals might be dominated or inhabited by the spirits of men. And it doesn’t romanticise the tough existence experienced by the villagers, in which violence, be it from the wild or people, always looms at the periphery, poised to explode. But the characters rarely become beyond symbols – or perhaps, while the conflicts between justice and revenge, logic and religion, virtue and evil intensify, emblematic figures within a moral tale – preventing the whole thing fully coming to life.
Tonal Inconsistencies
And then, there are the many stylistically clashing moments in which the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and discern Hilda’s fate becomes almost risible. He stands looking at broken milk pots and clumps of hair within storage sheds like a combined Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (none of whom were required to lick a blend of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to agree that, yes, it was definitely coagulated blood at the crime scene), before announcing his latest deduction and extracting a corpse from a bog.
Clashing Agendas
The local leaders are bent on proving that the maid met her end by an animal, maybe to protect the peace, or possibly to shield a fellow elite. The pastor is intent on proving the opposite, and the evidence so quickly accumulates in his favour that again the drama’s plausibility and the viewer’s patience get strained. At its best, the series is reminiscent of the TV version a few years ago of the author’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the competing attractions and fears presented by rational thought and belief. In its low points, it resembles a bear-themed police procedural. Still, it appears to provide the response to the earlier query: “Females, choose the animal.”
The series is on Disney+ currently.
