A heated debate recently went viral on social media, following someone posed a query to women: which would you prefer be lost in a forest alongside a male or with a bear? Similar to the best hypothetical scenarios, it revealed vastly opposing worldviews and life encounters, illuminated divides between the sexes, and could easily to induce an existential crisis if you thought on it for too long. Additionally, there came the predictable coda where men of a certain stripe came online to inform women how stupid they had been to select the animal and went on to describe the punishments they merited for that choice. This at minimum enabled those females who were uncertain about their decision to decide with a new confidence.
Dramatising the Setup
To Cook a Bear skillfully brings to life this clever little setup. This six-episode series is based on Swedish author the novelist’s 2018 novel with the identical title (translated in 2020 for English readers). It follows the tribulations of a pastor (the lead actor) and his household as they come to begin a fresh religious post within Kengis, a remote settlement in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. Within a community with few pleasures, none of the inhabitants especially warm to his strict approach to drinking and revelry, yet it is his defense of the poor – especially the indigenous Sami, from which hails the pastor’s adopted son the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his conviction in social justice and equal rights that sets him in direct opposition against the Kengis local authorities.
The Antagonists
Quickly in cahoots against him include the sheriff the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the intimidating mill owner the matron Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen initially firing a recently mangled laborer with a month’s pay while he is still gibbering upon seeing of his pulped hand, and all others who benefit from a populace who can be bought with some containers of liquor provided by the creepy shopkeeper Lindmark (the actor). Although, to be fair, Lindmark’s creepiness pales once itinerant painter the artist Beronius appears in the story (the performer, delivering an acting turn of rare discomfiting power). If they are – like the pastor himself – only a little more than caricatures, they still serve as potent archetypes.
Narrative Development
With the seeds of tension sown, the moment arrives to get down with the storyline. The maid from the doctor’s house, Hilda (the actress), duly goes missing from the woods. Signs of her escape and bear markings upon a trunk are found yet she remains nowhere to be seen. Gossip and anxieties regarding a human-devouring bear prowling the woodland circulate, yet the clergyman holds a different view which he and his ward embark to verify.
A Strange Creation
To Cook a Bear is a slightly peculiar show. It conjures a fine sense of the bleakness that allows distrust and bias and grim legends flourish from the native legend that bears can be controlled or inhabited by the souls of humans. It avoids romanticise the tough existence experienced by the residents, in which brutality, whether that of the wild or people, lurks constantly on the edges, poised to explode. But the characters seldom evolve more than ciphers – or maybe, as the struggles amid fairness and revenge, rationality and faith, good and evil escalate, representative characters within a moral tale – preventing the entire production fully coming to life.
Tonal Inconsistencies
And then, there are the many tonally jarring moments where the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and determine the maid’s destiny becomes nearly laughable. He stands looking at shattered containers and clumps of hair within storage sheds as a fusion of the Belgian detective the English sleuth – with Jussi a rather hapless Hastings-cum-Watson (neither of whom had to taste a mixture of blood droplets and the boss’s spit to confirm that indeed, it was definitely coagulated blood on the site), prior to declaring his latest deduction and pulling a body out of a swamp.
Clashing Agendas
The village elite are bent on demonstrating that the maid was killed by a bear, maybe to protect the peace, or possibly to protect one of their own. The clergyman is bent on establishing the opposite, and the evidence so quickly accumulates in his favour that once more the drama’s plausibility and audience tolerance get strained. At its best, To Cook a Bear is reminiscent of the adaptation some years back of the author’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the competing allures and fears presented by rational thought and religion. At its worst, it resembles a bear-themed police procedural. Still, it appears to offer the answer to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”
To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ now.
