A heated discussion lately spread widely on social media, after a user posed the question for females: which would you prefer find yourself stranded in a forest alongside a male or with a bear? Similar to the best hypothetical scenarios, it exposed vastly opposing worldviews and experiences, illuminated chasms among genders, and was likely to induce an existential crisis if you thought on it extensively. Additionally, there came the predictable follow-up where men of a certain stripe came online to tell women how foolish they were to select the animal and went on to limn the punishments they deserved for that choice. This at least allowed the women who had been hesitating about their decision to decide with renewed assurance.
Portraying the Scenario
To Cook a Bear skillfully brings to life this clever little setup. The six-part series is based from Scandinavian writer the novelist’s 2018 book of the same name (rendered in 2020 for English readers). It follows the tribulations of a clergyman (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his household as they come to start a new ministry within Kengis, an isolated settlement in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. In a place lacking many joys, not one of the inhabitants particularly warm to his puritanical approach to drinking and revelry, yet it is his protection of the poor – particularly the native Sami population, from which comes the pastor’s foster child Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in societal fairness and equal rights that places him on a collision course with the Kengis powers that be.
The Antagonists
Quickly collaborating against him include the sheriff the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating mill owner Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen initially firing a newly injured worker with a month’s pay as he remains gibbering at the sight his crushed hand, and all others who profit from a populace who can be bought for a few bottles of liquor sold by the unsettling shopkeeper Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). However, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness pales when travelling artist Beronius arrives in the story (Simon J Berger, delivering a performance of rare unsettling intensity). If they are – similar to the clergyman – only a little more being stereotypes, they are at least effective ones.
Narrative Development
Once the foundations of tension sown, the moment arrives to proceed with the storyline. The maid from the doctor’s house, the character Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), accordingly goes missing from the woods. Signs of her flight and animal scratches upon a trunk get discovered yet she remains completely absent. Gossip and fears of a man/maid-eating bear roaming the woods circulate, yet the clergyman has another theory 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 thrive based on local folklore that bears can be controlled or possessed by the souls of men. And it doesn’t romanticise the tough existence led by the residents, in which violence, whether that of the wild or people, always looms on the edges, poised to explode. Yet the personas seldom evolve beyond symbols – or perhaps, as the struggles between justice and vengeance, logic and faith, virtue and evil intensify, emblematic figures in a fable – which stops the whole thing fully coming to life.
Tonal Inconsistencies
Additionally, there are the many tonally jarring moments in which the pastor’s ability to discover clues and discern the maid’s destiny turns nearly laughable. He stands observing broken milk pots and clumps of hair in hay barns as a fusion of Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (neither of whom were required to lick a blend of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to agree that, yes, it was clearly dried blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his latest deduction and pulling a corpse from a bog.
Opposing Goals
The village elite are determined demonstrating that the maid met her end by a bear, perhaps to preserve the calm, perhaps to protect one of their own. The pastor is bent on establishing otherwise, and the evidence so rapidly accumulates supporting his view that once more the drama’s plausibility and audience tolerance are tested. In its finest moments, To Cook a Bear is reminiscent of the TV version some years back of the author’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the competing attractions and fears presented by rational thought and religion. At its worst, it’s more like a bear-themed police procedural. Nevertheless, it appears to provide the response to that debated question: “Ladies, take the bear.”
To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ currently.
