An intense discussion recently went viral on social media, following a user asked the question for females: which would you prefer find yourself stranded in a forest alongside a male or a bear? Similar to the most engaging hypothetical scenarios, it revealed wildly different worldviews and life encounters, illuminated chasms between the sexes, and was likely to induce a deep personal dilemma if you thought about it extensively. There was also the almost inevitable coda where some males took to the internet to tell females how foolish they had been for choosing the bear and proceeded to limn the punishments they deserved for it. This at least enabled those females who had been hesitating about their decision to decide with a new confidence.
Portraying the Scenario
To Cook a Bear effectively dramatises this clever small premise. The six-part series is based from Scandinavian writer the novelist’s 2018 book with the identical title (translated in 2020 for English readers). It traces the struggles of a pastor (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his household when they arrive to start a fresh religious post in Kengis, a remote settlement in northern Sweden, in 1852. In a place lacking many joys, not one of the inhabitants especially warm to his strict approach to alcohol and dancing, but it is his protection of the poor – particularly the native Sami population, from among whom hails the pastor’s adopted son Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – 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 in cahoots against him are the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the intimidating mill owner Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed early on dismissing a newly injured worker with a month’s pay while he is still gibbering upon seeing of his pulped hand, and all others who benefit from a community who can be bought with some containers of liquor provided by the creepy store owner Lindmark (the actor). Although, to be fair, Lindmark’s creepiness pales when travelling artist Beronius arrives in the story (the performer, providing an acting turn of rare discomfiting power). If they are – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, they still serve as effective ones.
Plot Progression
Once the foundations of tension sown, the moment arrives to proceed to narrative business. The servant from the doctor’s house, Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), accordingly goes missing in the forest. Indications of her flight and bear markings on a tree are found yet she remains completely absent. Rumours and anxieties regarding a human-devouring bear prowling the woodland spread, yet the clergyman has another theory which he and his ward set out to prove.
A Strange Creation
This Bear Drama is a slightly peculiar show. It creates a fine sense of the bleakness that lets suspicion and prejudice and grim legends flourish from the native legend that animals might be dominated or inhabited by the spirits of humans. It avoids idealising the tough existence experienced by the residents, where brutality, be it from the wild or mankind, always looms on the edges, waiting to erupt. But the characters rarely become beyond symbols – or maybe, while the conflicts amid fairness and revenge, logic and faith, good and wickedness escalate, representative characters in a fable – preventing the entire production fully becoming immersive.
Stylistic Shifts
And then, exist numerous stylistically clashing instances where the pastor’s ability to discover clues and discern Hilda’s fate becomes almost risible. He positions himself observing 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 (neither of whom were required to lick a mixture of blood droplets and the boss’s spit to confirm that, yes, it was definitely dried blood on the site), prior to declaring his latest deduction and pulling a body out of a swamp.
Opposing Goals
The village elite are determined demonstrating that Hilda met her end by an animal, perhaps to preserve the peace, or possibly to protect one of their own. The clergyman is intent on proving the opposite, and the evidence so rapidly stacks up in his favour that again the drama’s plausibility and audience tolerance are tested. In its finest moments, To Cook a Bear evokes memories of the TV version some years back of the author’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the competing attractions and fears presented by rational thought and religion. At its worst, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Nevertheless, it does seem to provide the answer to the earlier query: “Females, choose the animal.”
The series is on Disney+ now.
