An heated discussion lately went viral on social media, following someone asked the question to women: which would you prefer find yourself stranded in a forest with a man or with a bear? Like all the most engaging thought experiments, it revealed vastly opposing perspectives and experiences, highlighted divides among genders, and was likely to induce an existential crisis for anyone pondering on it for too long. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable follow-up where some males came online to tell females how foolish they were for choosing the bear and went on to limn the consequences they merited for that choice. This at minimum allowed the women who were uncertain about their decision to decide with a new confidence.
Portraying the Scenario
To Cook a Bear skillfully dramatises this nifty small premise. This six-episode series is adapted on Swedish author the novelist’s 2018 book of the same name (rendered in 2020 for English readers). It follows the tribulations of a clergyman (the lead actor) and his household when they arrive to start a new ministry within Kengis, an isolated settlement in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. In a place lacking many joys, none of the inhabitants especially appreciate his puritanical approach to alcohol and revelry, yet it is his protection of the poor – particularly the indigenous Sami, from which hails the preacher’s adopted son Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in societal fairness and equality that sets him on a collision course with the Kengis powers that be.
The Opposing Forces
Soon collaborating opposing him include the sheriff the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the intimidating factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed initially firing a recently mangled worker with minimal compensation while he is still gibbering at the sight of his pulped hand, and anyone else who benefit from a populace who can be bought with some containers of liquor sold by the unsettling store owner the merchant Lindmark (the actor). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes once itinerant painter Beronius appears on the scene (the performer, providing a performance of rare unsettling intensity). If they are – like the pastor himself – only a little more than caricatures, they are at least potent archetypes.
Narrative Development
With the seeds of tension sown, the moment arrives to proceed to narrative business. The servant from the doctor’s house, Hilda (the actress), accordingly goes missing in the forest. Indications of her flight and animal scratches on a tree get discovered but she is nowhere to be seen. Gossip and fears regarding a human-devouring bear roaming the woods circulate, yet the clergyman holds a different view which he and his ward embark to prove.
An Odd Beast
To Cook a Bear is a somewhat peculiar show. It creates a fine sense of the desolation that lets suspicion and prejudice and grim legends thrive based on local folklore that animals might be dominated or possessed by the spirits of humans. And it doesn’t idealising the hardscrabble life led by the residents, where violence, whether that of nature or people, lurks constantly on the edges, poised to explode. But the characters rarely become more than ciphers – or maybe, as the struggles between justice and revenge, logic and religion, good and evil intensify, representative characters in a fable – which stops the entire production fully coming to life.
Tonal Inconsistencies
Additionally, exist numerous tonally jarring moments in which the clergyman’s skill to discover clues and determine the maid’s destiny turns nearly laughable. He positions himself looking at shattered containers and strands of fur in hay barns like a combined Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – with Jussi a rather hapless Hastings-cum-Watson (none of whom had to taste a blend of blood droplets and saliva from his superior to confirm that, yes, it was definitely coagulated blood on the site), before announcing his newest conclusion and extracting a body out of a swamp.
Opposing Goals
The local leaders are bent on demonstrating that the maid met her end by a bear, maybe to protect the calm, perhaps to protect one of their own. The clergyman is bent on establishing otherwise, and the proof so rapidly stacks up in his favour that once more the drama’s plausibility and the viewer’s patience get strained. In its finest moments, To Cook a Bear is reminiscent of the adaptation a few years ago of the author’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the competing allures and fears offered by science and religion. In its low points, it’s more like a bear-themed police procedural. Nevertheless, it appears to offer the answer to that debated question: “Ladies, take the bear.”
To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ currently.
