An heated discussion lately went viral on social media, following a user asked a query for females: which would you prefer find yourself stranded in the woods alongside a male or with a bear? Similar to the best thought experiments, it exposed wildly different perspectives and experiences, highlighted divides among genders, and was likely to induce an existential crisis if you thought on it for too long. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable follow-up where some males came online to inform women how stupid they were to select the bear and went on to limn the consequences they merited for it. This at minimum enabled the women who were uncertain over their choice to decide with renewed assurance.
Dramatising the Setup
To Cook a Bear effectively dramatises this clever little setup. This six-episode drama is adapted on Swedish author 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 new ministry within Kengis, an isolated village in Sweden’s north, in 1852. Within a community lacking many joys, none of the inhabitants especially appreciate his strict approach to alcohol and revelry, yet it is his protection of impoverished people – especially the native Sami population, from among whom hails the preacher’s foster child Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in social justice and equality that places him in direct opposition against the Kengis powers that be.
The Opposing Forces
Quickly collaborating opposing him are the sheriff the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the fearsome mill owner Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen initially firing a newly injured laborer with a month’s pay while he is still gibbering at the sight of his pulped hand, and all others who benefit from a populace easily swayed for a few bottles of the whisky provided by the creepy shopkeeper Lindmark (the actor). However, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness pales when itinerant painter the artist Beronius appears on the scene (the performer, delivering an acting turn of exceptional discomfiting power). If they are – like the pastor himself – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, they are at least effective ones.
Plot Progression
With the seeds of conflict sown, the moment arrives to get down with the storyline. The servant employed by the doctor, the character Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), duly goes missing in the forest. Signs of her flight and animal scratches upon a trunk are found yet she remains completely absent. Gossip and anxieties regarding a human-devouring bear prowling the woodland spread, yet the clergyman has another theory that he and Jussi embark to prove.
An Odd Beast
To Cook a Bear is a slightly odd beast. It creates a strong impression of the desolation that allows suspicion and bias and dark myths flourish from the native legend that bears might be dominated or inhabited by the spirits of humans. And it doesn’t romanticise the tough existence experienced by the residents, in which brutality, whether that of the wild or mankind, always looms at the periphery, waiting to erupt. Yet the personas seldom evolve more than ciphers – or maybe, as the struggles between justice and revenge, logic and faith, good and evil intensify, representative characters in a fable – preventing the whole thing fully becoming immersive.
Tonal Inconsistencies
Additionally, exist numerous tonally jarring moments in which the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and discern the maid’s destiny becomes nearly laughable. He stands looking at broken milk pots and strands of fur within storage sheds as a fusion of the Belgian detective and Sherlock Holmes – with Jussi a rather hapless assistant figure (neither of whom were required to taste a mixture of blood spatter and the boss’s spit to confirm that, yes, it was definitely coagulated blood on the site), before announcing his newest conclusion and pulling a body from a bog.
Opposing Goals
The village elite are determined proving that the maid was killed by an animal, perhaps to preserve the calm, perhaps to protect a fellow elite. The clergyman is bent on proving the opposite, and the proof so rapidly stacks up supporting his view that once more the drama’s plausibility and audience tolerance get strained. In its finest moments, the series is reminiscent of the TV version a few years ago of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the opposing attractions and terrors presented by science and belief. In its low points, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it appears to provide the answer to that debated question: “Ladies, take the bear.”
To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ now.
