An intense discussion lately spread widely across online platforms, after someone asked the question to women: which would you prefer find yourself stranded in a forest alongside a male or a bear? Similar to the best hypothetical scenarios, it revealed vastly opposing worldviews and experiences, illuminated divides among genders, and was likely to induce an existential crisis for anyone pondering about it extensively. There was also the almost inevitable coda where men of a certain stripe came online to tell women how stupid they had been for choosing the bear and went on to limn the punishments they deserved for it. This at minimum allowed those females who had been hesitating over their choice to decide with a new confidence.
Portraying the Setup
To Cook a Bear effectively brings to life this clever little setup. This six-episode series is adapted on Scandinavian writer the novelist’s 2018 novel of the same name (rendered in 2020 for an English audience). It traces the struggles of a pastor (the lead actor) and his household as they come to start a fresh religious post in Kengis, a remote village in Sweden’s north, in 1852. In a place with few pleasures, not one of the inhabitants particularly appreciate his puritanical stance on alcohol and revelry, but it is his protection of impoverished people – especially the indigenous Sami, from among whom comes the preacher’s foster child the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in societal fairness and equal rights that sets him on a collision course with the Kengis powers that be.
The Opposing Forces
Quickly collaborating opposing him are the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the intimidating factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed early on dismissing a recently mangled worker with a month’s pay while he is still babbling at the sight his crushed hand, and anyone else who benefit from a community who can be bought with some containers of liquor sold by the creepy shopkeeper the merchant Lindmark (the actor). Although, to be fair, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes once itinerant painter Beronius arrives in the story (the performer, delivering an acting turn of rare discomfiting power). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond than caricatures, they are at least potent archetypes.
Plot Progression
With the seeds of tension planted, it is time to proceed to narrative business. The servant employed by the doctor, Hilda (the actress), accordingly goes missing from the woods. Signs of her escape and bear markings upon a trunk get discovered yet she remains completely absent. Gossip and fears of a man/maid-eating beast roaming the woods circulate, but the pastor holds a different view which he and his ward embark to prove.
A Strange Creation
This Bear Drama is a slightly odd beast. It creates a fine sense of the bleakness that allows distrust and prejudice and grim legends thrive from the native legend that bears might be dominated or inhabited by the spirits of men. It avoids romanticise the tough existence experienced by the villagers, where brutality, whether that of the wild or people, lurks constantly at the periphery, poised to explode. But the characters rarely become beyond symbols – or perhaps, while the conflicts between justice and vengeance, logic and faith, good and evil intensify, emblematic figures within a moral tale – which stops the entire production truly coming to life.
Stylistic Shifts
Additionally, exist numerous tonally jarring instances in which the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and discern Hilda’s fate turns almost risible. He positions himself looking at shattered containers and strands of fur within storage sheds as a fusion of the Belgian detective the English sleuth – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (neither of whom were required to lick a mixture of blood droplets and saliva from his superior to agree that indeed, it was clearly coagulated blood on the site), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and extracting a body from a bog.
Opposing Goals
The village elite are bent on proving that Hilda met her end by an animal, maybe to protect the calm, or possibly to shield one of their own. The clergyman is intent on proving otherwise, and the proof so rapidly accumulates in his favour that again the show’s credibility and the viewer’s patience get strained. At its best, 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 opposing attractions and fears presented by science and religion. At its worst, it resembles a bear-themed police procedural. Still, it does seem to provide the answer to that debated question: “Ladies, take the bear.”
To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ now.
