A heated debate lately went viral across online platforms, following someone asked a query to women: which would you prefer find yourself stranded in a forest with a man or a bear? Like all the most engaging hypothetical scenarios, it revealed wildly different perspectives and experiences, illuminated divides among genders, and was likely cause a deep personal dilemma for anyone pondering about it extensively. Additionally, there came the predictable coda where men of a certain stripe took to the internet to inform women how stupid they were for choosing the animal and proceeded to describe the punishments they deserved for that choice. This at minimum allowed the women who had been hesitating over their choice to make it with renewed assurance.
Portraying the Setup
To Cook a Bear skillfully brings to life this clever small premise. The six-part series is adapted from Swedish author the novelist’s 2018 book with the identical title (translated in 2020 for English readers). It traces the tribulations of a clergyman (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his household when they arrive to start a new ministry in Kengis, an isolated village in Sweden’s north, during the mid-19th century. In a place lacking many joys, not one of the locals particularly warm to his strict approach to alcohol and dancing, but it is his protection of impoverished people – especially the indigenous Sami, from which hails the pastor’s adopted son the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his conviction in societal fairness and equal rights that places him in direct opposition with the Kengis local authorities.
The Opposing Forces
Quickly collaborating opposing him are the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the fearsome mill owner Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen initially firing a recently mangled laborer with minimal compensation 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 sold by the creepy store owner Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). However, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes when travelling artist Beronius appears in the story (Simon J Berger, delivering an acting turn of exceptional unsettling intensity). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond than caricatures, they still serve as potent archetypes.
Narrative Development
Once the foundations of conflict sown, the moment arrives to proceed with the storyline. The maid from the doctor’s house, the character Hilda (the actress), duly vanishes from the woods. Indications of her flight and bear markings on a tree are found yet she remains nowhere to be seen. Gossip and anxieties regarding a human-devouring beast prowling the woodland circulate, yet the clergyman holds a different view which he and his ward embark to verify.
An Odd Beast
To Cook a Bear is a somewhat odd beast. It conjures a fine sense of the bleakness that allows distrust and bias and dark myths thrive from the native legend that animals might be dominated or inhabited by the spirits of humans. And it doesn’t romanticise the tough existence experienced by the residents, where violence, be it from the wild or mankind, lurks constantly at the periphery, poised to explode. But the characters rarely become more than ciphers – or perhaps, as the struggles between justice and revenge, rationality and faith, virtue and wickedness intensify, emblematic figures in a fable – which stops the entire production fully becoming immersive.
Tonal Inconsistencies
Additionally, exist the many tonally jarring moments where the pastor’s ability to discover clues and discern the maid’s destiny turns nearly laughable. He stands looking at broken milk pots and clumps of hair within storage sheds as a fusion of Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – 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 agree that indeed, it was definitely dried blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and pulling a corpse out of a swamp.
Clashing Agendas
The local leaders are bent on demonstrating that Hilda met her end by a bear, perhaps to protect the calm, or possibly to shield a fellow elite. The clergyman is bent on establishing the opposite, and the evidence so rapidly accumulates in his favour that once more 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 Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the opposing attractions and fears presented by rational thought and religion. In its low points, it’s more like a bear-themed police procedural. Nevertheless, it appears to provide the answer to that debated question: “Ladies, take the bear.”
The series streams on Disney+ currently.
