A heated debate recently spread widely across online platforms, following someone asked the question for females: would you rather be lost in the woods with a man or a bear? Similar to the best hypothetical scenarios, it exposed vastly opposing perspectives and life encounters, illuminated divides among genders, and was likely to induce an existential crisis if you thought on it for too long. Additionally, there came the predictable follow-up where men of a certain stripe came online to inform females how foolish they had been for choosing the animal and went on to describe the consequences they deserved for that choice. This at minimum allowed those females who had been hesitating over their choice to decide with a new confidence.
Dramatising the Scenario
To Cook a Bear effectively brings to life this nifty small premise. This six-episode drama is based from Swedish author the novelist’s 2018 novel of the same name (translated in 2020 for an English audience). It follows the tribulations of a clergyman (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his household as they come to begin 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 especially appreciate his strict stance on drinking and dancing, yet it is his protection of impoverished people – particularly the indigenous Sami, from which hails the preacher’s adopted son the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in societal fairness and equality that places him in direct opposition against the Kengis powers that be.
The Opposing Forces
Soon collaborating opposing him are the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the fearsome mill owner Madam Sjödahl (the actress), observed initially firing a recently mangled laborer with a month’s pay while he is still gibbering upon seeing of his pulped hand, and anyone else who benefit from a community who can be bought for a few bottles of liquor sold by the creepy shopkeeper the merchant Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes once itinerant painter Beronius appears on the scene (the performer, providing a performance of exceptional unsettling intensity). While they remain – like the pastor himself – only a little more than caricatures, they still serve as potent archetypes.
Plot Progression
With the seeds of conflict sown, it is time to proceed to narrative business. The maid employed by the doctor, the character Hilda (the actress), accordingly vanishes in the forest. Signs of her flight and bear markings upon a trunk get discovered but she is nowhere to be seen. Rumours and anxieties of a man/maid-eating beast prowling the woods spread, yet the clergyman has another theory that he and Jussi embark to prove.
A Strange Creation
This Bear Drama is a somewhat odd beast. It conjures a strong impression of the bleakness that allows distrust and prejudice and dark myths flourish based on local folklore that animals can be controlled or inhabited by the spirits of men. It avoids idealising the tough existence experienced by the residents, where violence, whether that of the wild or people, always looms on the edges, poised to explode. Yet the personas seldom evolve beyond symbols – or maybe, while the conflicts amid fairness and revenge, rationality and faith, good and wickedness intensify, emblematic figures in a fable – which stops the entire production truly coming to life.
Stylistic Shifts
Additionally, exist the many tonally jarring instances in which the clergyman’s skill to discover clues and determine Hilda’s fate turns nearly laughable. He positions himself looking at broken milk pots and clumps of hair within storage sheds like a combined Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (none of whom were required to lick a blend of blood droplets and the boss’s spit to agree that indeed, it was clearly coagulated blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his latest deduction and extracting a body out of a swamp.
Opposing Goals
The village elite are bent on proving that Hilda met her end by an animal, perhaps to preserve the peace, perhaps to protect one of their own. The pastor is bent on proving the opposite, and the proof so quickly stacks up in his favour that again the drama’s plausibility and audience tolerance get strained. At its best, the series evokes memories of the TV version some years back of Sarah Perry’s The Essex Serpent, with its evocation of the opposing attractions and fears offered by rational thought and belief. In its low points, it resembles a bear-themed police procedural. Nevertheless, it does seem to offer the response to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”
To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ currently.
