An intense debate recently went viral across online platforms, after someone posed the question for females: would you rather be lost in a forest alongside a male or with a bear? Similar to the best thought experiments, it revealed vastly opposing perspectives and experiences, highlighted divides between the sexes, and could easily cause an existential crisis for anyone pondering on it for too long. There was also the predictable coda in which some males took to the internet to tell women how stupid they had been to select the animal and proceeded to limn the consequences they deserved for it. This at least allowed those females who had been hesitating about their decision to decide with a new confidence.
Portraying the Scenario
To Cook a Bear effectively brings to life this nifty little setup. This six-episode drama is based on Scandinavian writer the novelist’s 2018 novel of the same name (rendered in 2020 for an English audience). It follows the tribulations of a clergyman (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his family as they come to begin a fresh religious post within Kengis, an isolated settlement in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. Within a community lacking many joys, none of the inhabitants especially appreciate his strict approach to drinking and dancing, yet it is his defense of impoverished people – especially the native Sami population, from among whom comes the pastor’s adopted son Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his conviction in social justice and equal rights that sets him on a collision course with the Kengis local authorities.
The Antagonists
Soon in cahoots against him are the lawman the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating mill owner the matron Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed initially dismissing a newly injured worker with a month’s pay while he is still babbling upon seeing of his pulped hand, and anyone else who benefit from a populace who can be bought for a few bottles of liquor sold by the creepy store owner Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). However, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness pales once travelling artist Beronius appears on the scene (Simon J Berger, providing a performance of exceptional unsettling intensity). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond than caricatures, they are at least potent archetypes.
Narrative Development
With the seeds of tension planted, the moment arrives to proceed to narrative business. The servant employed by the doctor, Hilda (the actress), accordingly goes missing in the forest. Signs of her flight and bear markings upon a trunk get discovered yet she remains nowhere to be seen. Rumours and fears regarding a human-devouring beast prowling the woods circulate, yet the clergyman holds a different view that he and Jussi embark to verify.
A Strange Creation
This Bear Drama is a somewhat odd beast. It creates a strong impression of the desolation that lets distrust and bias and grim legends flourish based on local folklore that bears might be dominated or inhabited by the spirits of men. And it doesn’t romanticise the hardscrabble life experienced by the villagers, where brutality, be it from nature or people, lurks constantly on the edges, poised to explode. Yet the personas rarely become more than ciphers – or maybe, while the conflicts amid fairness and revenge, rationality and faith, good and wickedness escalate, representative characters in a fable – which stops the entire production truly coming to life.
Tonal Inconsistencies
And then, exist the many stylistically clashing moments where the pastor’s ability to discover clues and determine the maid’s destiny becomes nearly laughable. He stands looking at shattered containers and clumps of hair in hay barns like a combined the Belgian detective the English sleuth – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (neither of whom were required to taste a blend of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to confirm that, yes, it was definitely dried blood on the site), before announcing his newest conclusion and pulling a body from a bog.
Opposing Goals
The local leaders are bent on proving that the maid was killed by an animal, maybe to preserve the calm, or possibly to protect a fellow elite. The clergyman is bent on establishing the opposite, and the proof so rapidly accumulates supporting his view that again the show’s credibility and audience tolerance get strained. At its best, To Cook a Bear evokes memories of the adaptation a few years ago of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the competing attractions and terrors presented by science and religion. At its worst, it’s more like a bear-themed police procedural. Still, it does seem to offer the response to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”
The series is on Disney+ currently.
