A heated discussion recently spread widely across online platforms, following someone posed a query to women: would you rather be lost in a forest with a man or a bear? Similar to the best hypothetical scenarios, it exposed vastly opposing perspectives and life encounters, illuminated divides between the sexes, and was likely to induce a deep personal dilemma for anyone pondering on it extensively. Additionally, there came the predictable follow-up where men of a certain stripe took to the internet to tell women how stupid they had been to select the bear and proceeded to describe the consequences they merited for it. This at least enabled the women who had been hesitating over their choice to decide with renewed assurance.
Portraying the Setup
To Cook a Bear effectively brings to life this nifty little setup. The six-part drama is adapted on Scandinavian writer the novelist’s 2018 novel of the same name (rendered in 2020 for English readers). It follows the struggles of a clergyman (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his family when they arrive to begin a fresh religious post in Kengis, a remote village in Sweden’s north, in 1852. In a place with few pleasures, not one of the locals particularly warm to his puritanical approach to alcohol and dancing, yet it is his defense of the poor – particularly the indigenous Sami, from among whom hails the pastor’s foster child the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his belief in social justice and equality that places him in direct opposition with the Kengis powers that be.
The Antagonists
Quickly collaborating opposing him include the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the fearsome factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed early on dismissing a recently mangled laborer with a month’s pay as he remains gibbering at the sight his crushed hand, and all others who profit from a community easily swayed with some containers of the whisky provided by the creepy shopkeeper the merchant Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, to be fair, Lindmark’s creepiness pales when travelling artist Beronius arrives in the story (the performer, providing a performance of rare discomfiting power). If they are – similar to the clergyman – only a little more than caricatures, they still serve as potent archetypes.
Narrative Development
Once the foundations of conflict planted, the moment arrives to get down to narrative business. The maid employed by the doctor, Hilda (the actress), duly goes missing from the woods. Signs of her escape and animal scratches upon a trunk are found but she is completely absent. Rumours and anxieties of a man/maid-eating beast roaming the woods spread, but the pastor holds a different view which he and his ward set out to verify.
A Strange Creation
To Cook a Bear is a somewhat peculiar show. It conjures a strong impression of the desolation that lets suspicion and prejudice and grim legends flourish based on local folklore that bears can be controlled or possessed by the souls of men. And it doesn’t idealising the tough existence led by the villagers, where brutality, whether that of the wild or people, lurks constantly on the edges, waiting to erupt. Yet the personas seldom evolve beyond symbols – or maybe, while the conflicts between justice and revenge, rationality and religion, good and wickedness intensify, representative characters in a fable – which stops the entire production fully becoming immersive.
Tonal Inconsistencies
Additionally, there are numerous stylistically clashing instances where the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and discern the maid’s destiny becomes nearly laughable. He stands observing shattered containers and clumps of hair within storage sheds like a combined Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – with Jussi a rather hapless Hastings-cum-Watson (none of whom had to lick a blend of blood droplets and saliva from his superior to agree that indeed, it was definitely dried blood on the site), before announcing his latest deduction and extracting a corpse out of a swamp.
Opposing Goals
The local leaders are bent on demonstrating that the maid was killed by an animal, maybe to protect the peace, or possibly to protect a fellow elite. The pastor is bent on proving otherwise, and the proof so rapidly accumulates supporting his view that once more the show’s credibility and audience tolerance are tested. In its finest moments, the series is reminiscent of the TV version some years back of the author’s The Essex Serpent, with its evocation of the opposing attractions and fears offered by rational thought and belief. At its worst, it resembles a bear-themed police procedural. Nevertheless, it appears to provide the answer to the earlier query: “Females, choose the animal.”
To Cook a Bear is on Disney+ now.
