A heated discussion lately spread widely on social media, following someone asked a query to women: would you rather find yourself stranded in the woods alongside a male or a bear? Like all the most engaging thought experiments, it exposed wildly different perspectives and experiences, illuminated divides among genders, and could easily to induce a deep personal dilemma for anyone pondering on it extensively. There was also the predictable coda in which men of a certain stripe took to the internet to inform women how stupid 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 were uncertain about their decision to decide with renewed assurance.
Dramatising the Scenario
To Cook a Bear skillfully dramatises this nifty small premise. This six-episode drama is based from Scandinavian writer the novelist’s 2018 novel with the identical title (rendered two years later for English readers). It traces the struggles of a clergyman (the lead actor) and his family when they arrive to start a new ministry in Kengis, an isolated settlement in Sweden’s north, during the mid-19th century. Within a community with few pleasures, not one of the inhabitants particularly warm to his puritanical approach to alcohol and dancing, yet it is his defense of the poor – especially the indigenous Sami, from which hails the pastor’s foster child the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his conviction in societal fairness and equality that places him on a collision course against the Kengis local authorities.
The Antagonists
Soon in cahoots opposing him include the lawman the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the intimidating mill owner Madam Sjödahl (the actress), seen early on dismissing a newly injured laborer with minimal compensation as he remains gibbering at the sight his crushed hand, and anyone else who benefit from a populace who can be bought for a few bottles of the whisky provided by the creepy store owner Lindmark (the actor). Although, to be fair, Lindmark’s creepiness pales once itinerant painter Beronius arrives in the story (the performer, delivering an acting turn of rare unsettling intensity). If they are – like the pastor himself – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, they are at least effective ones.
Narrative Development
Once the foundations of conflict sown, it is time to proceed to narrative business. The maid from the doctor’s house, Hilda (the actress), duly goes missing in the forest. Signs of her escape and animal scratches upon a trunk get discovered but she is nowhere to be seen. Gossip and anxieties regarding a human-devouring beast roaming the woods circulate, yet the clergyman has another theory that he and Jussi set out to verify.
A Strange Creation
To Cook a Bear is a somewhat odd beast. It conjures a strong impression of the bleakness that allows distrust and bias and grim legends thrive based on local folklore that bears can be controlled or possessed by the souls of men. And it doesn’t romanticise the tough existence led by the villagers, where brutality, be it from nature or mankind, always looms at the periphery, poised to explode. But the characters rarely become more than ciphers – or perhaps, as the struggles amid fairness and revenge, logic and religion, good and wickedness intensify, representative characters within a moral tale – which stops the whole thing fully coming to life.
Stylistic Shifts
Additionally, there are numerous stylistically clashing instances in which the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and determine Hilda’s fate turns almost risible. He stands observing broken milk pots and strands of fur in hay barns like a combined Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (neither of whom had to lick a mixture of blood droplets and saliva from his superior to confirm that, yes, it was clearly coagulated blood on the site), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and pulling a body out of a swamp.
Clashing Agendas
The village elite are bent on proving that the maid was killed by a bear, perhaps to protect the peace, perhaps to shield a fellow elite. The pastor is intent on proving otherwise, and the proof so quickly accumulates supporting his view that once more the show’s credibility and audience tolerance get strained. At its best, the series is reminiscent of the adaptation some years back of the author’s The Essex Serpent, with its evocation of the opposing attractions and fears presented by science and religion. In its low points, it resembles a bear-themed police procedural. Still, it appears to offer the response to that debated question: “Females, choose the animal.”
To Cook a Bear is on Disney+ currently.
