An heated discussion lately went viral across online platforms, following a user asked the question for females: which would you prefer find yourself stranded in a forest with a man or a bear? Similar to the most engaging thought experiments, it revealed wildly different worldviews and experiences, highlighted chasms between the sexes, and was likely cause a deep personal dilemma if you thought about it for too long. Additionally, there came the predictable follow-up in which men of a certain stripe came online to tell women how stupid they were to select the animal and proceeded to limn the punishments they merited for that choice. This at least enabled the women who had been hesitating about their decision to make it with a new confidence.
Portraying the Scenario
To Cook a Bear effectively brings to life this clever small premise. The six-part series is based on Swedish author the novelist’s 2018 novel of the same name (rendered two years later for English readers). It traces the struggles of a clergyman (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his household as they come to begin a new ministry in Kengis, an isolated settlement in northern Sweden, in 1852. In a place with few pleasures, none of the locals especially warm to his puritanical stance on alcohol and dancing, yet it is his protection of impoverished people – particularly the indigenous Sami, from which hails the preacher’s foster child Jussi (the young actor) – and his conviction in social justice and equal rights that sets him on a collision course with the Kengis powers that be.
The Opposing Forces
Quickly collaborating opposing him include the lawman the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the fearsome mill owner Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen initially firing a newly injured laborer with a month’s pay while he is still babbling upon seeing of his pulped hand, and anyone else who benefit from a community easily swayed with some containers of liquor sold by the unsettling store owner the merchant Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). However, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes when itinerant painter the artist Beronius appears on the scene (the performer, providing a performance of exceptional discomfiting power). While they remain – like the pastor himself – only a little more being stereotypes, they are at least effective ones.
Narrative Development
Once the foundations of tension planted, it is time to get down to narrative business. The maid from the doctor’s house, the character Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), duly goes missing in the forest. Signs of her escape and animal scratches upon a trunk get discovered but she is completely absent. Gossip and anxieties of a man/maid-eating beast prowling the woodland circulate, but the pastor holds a different view which he and his ward embark to verify.
An Odd Beast
This Bear Drama is a slightly peculiar show. It creates a fine sense of the desolation that allows distrust and prejudice and dark myths flourish from the native legend that animals can be controlled or possessed by the spirits of men. It avoids romanticise the hardscrabble life led by the villagers, where violence, whether that of the wild or mankind, lurks constantly at the periphery, waiting to erupt. But the characters rarely become more than ciphers – or maybe, while the conflicts between justice and vengeance, rationality and faith, good and evil intensify, representative characters within a moral tale – preventing the whole thing truly coming to life.
Stylistic Shifts
And then, there are numerous tonally jarring moments where the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and determine Hilda’s fate turns almost risible. He positions himself observing shattered containers and strands of fur within storage sheds as a fusion of the Belgian detective the English sleuth – alongside Jussi a rather hapless assistant figure (none of whom had to taste a blend of blood droplets and the boss’s spit to confirm that, yes, it was clearly coagulated blood on the site), before announcing his latest deduction and pulling a body from a bog.
Clashing Agendas
The local leaders are determined demonstrating that the maid met her end by an animal, maybe to preserve the peace, perhaps to protect one of their own. The clergyman is bent on proving otherwise, and the proof so quickly accumulates supporting his view that once more the show’s credibility and audience tolerance are tested. At its best, To Cook a Bear evokes memories of the adaptation a few years ago of the author’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the opposing allures and terrors presented by rational thought and belief. At its worst, it’s more like Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Nevertheless, it appears to offer the response to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”
The series streams on Disney+ currently.
