A intense discussion recently went viral on social media, after a user posed a query for females: which would you prefer find yourself stranded in the woods alongside a male or with a bear? Like all the best thought experiments, it revealed wildly different worldviews and experiences, highlighted divides among genders, and could easily cause a deep personal dilemma for anyone pondering on it for too long. Additionally, there came the predictable coda in which men of a certain stripe took to the internet to inform females how stupid they were to select the animal and went on to limn the punishments they deserved for that choice. This at minimum enabled those females who had been hesitating over their choice to make it with a new confidence.
Portraying the Scenario
To Cook a Bear effectively brings to life this nifty small premise. This six-episode drama is based on Scandinavian writer the novelist’s 2018 book of the same name (translated two years later for English readers). It traces the struggles of a pastor (the lead actor) and his family when they arrive to begin a new ministry in Kengis, a remote village in Sweden’s north, in 1852. In a place lacking many joys, none of the locals especially appreciate his puritanical stance on drinking and dancing, yet it is his defense of impoverished people – particularly the native Sami population, from which hails the preacher’s adopted son the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his conviction in societal fairness and equality that sets him on a collision course with the Kengis local authorities.
The Antagonists
Quickly collaborating against him are the lawman the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating mill owner the matron Sjödahl (the actress), seen early on dismissing a newly injured laborer with minimal compensation while he is still babbling upon seeing his crushed hand, and anyone else who benefit from a community easily swayed for a few bottles of the whisky provided by the creepy shopkeeper Lindmark (the actor). Although, to be fair, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes when itinerant painter the artist Beronius appears in the story (Simon J Berger, delivering an acting turn of rare discomfiting power). If they are – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, they are at least effective ones.
Plot Progression
With the seeds of conflict sown, the moment arrives to proceed to narrative business. The servant from the doctor’s house, the character Hilda (the actress), duly vanishes in the forest. Indications of her escape and bear markings upon a trunk get discovered but she is nowhere to be seen. Rumours and fears regarding a human-devouring bear roaming the woodland spread, yet the clergyman holds a different view which he and his ward set out to verify.
An Odd Beast
This Bear Drama is a slightly peculiar show. It conjures a fine sense of the desolation that allows suspicion and prejudice and grim legends thrive from the native legend that animals might be dominated or possessed by the souls of humans. And it doesn’t idealising the hardscrabble life led by the villagers, in which brutality, be it from nature or mankind, always looms at the periphery, poised to explode. But the characters rarely become more than ciphers – or maybe, while the conflicts amid fairness and revenge, rationality and faith, good and evil intensify, emblematic figures within a moral tale – preventing the whole thing truly becoming immersive.
Tonal Inconsistencies
Additionally, there are the many tonally jarring instances in which the pastor’s ability to discover clues and determine the maid’s destiny becomes nearly laughable. He positions himself observing broken milk pots 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 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), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and pulling a body out of a swamp.
Opposing Goals
The village elite are bent on demonstrating that the maid was killed by an animal, perhaps to preserve the peace, perhaps to protect one of their own. The clergyman is bent on establishing the opposite, and the evidence so rapidly accumulates in his favour that again the drama’s plausibility and the viewer’s patience are tested. At its best, To Cook a Bear is reminiscent of the adaptation a few years ago of the author’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the opposing allures and fears presented by science and belief. In its low points, it resembles a bear-themed police procedural. Still, it does seem to offer the response to that debated question: “Females, choose the animal.”
To Cook a Bear is on Disney+ currently.
