An intense debate recently went viral on social media, following a user asked the question for females: would you rather find yourself stranded in a forest with a man or a bear? Similar to the most engaging hypothetical scenarios, it exposed wildly different worldviews and experiences, illuminated divides between the sexes, and could easily to induce an existential crisis if you thought on it extensively. There was also the almost inevitable follow-up in which some males took to the internet to tell females how stupid they had been for choosing the animal and proceeded to describe the punishments they deserved for that choice. This at least enabled the women who were uncertain over their choice to make it with a new confidence.
Portraying the Setup
To Cook a Bear effectively brings to life this nifty small premise. The six-part series is adapted on Swedish author the novelist’s 2018 novel with the identical title (rendered two years later for an English audience). It follows the struggles of a pastor (the lead actor) and his family when they arrive to begin a new ministry within Kengis, a remote village in Sweden’s north, during the mid-19th century. In a place with few pleasures, not one of the inhabitants particularly warm to his strict approach to alcohol and revelry, yet it is his protection of the poor – especially the indigenous Sami, from among whom hails the pastor’s adopted son the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his conviction in social justice and equality that sets him on a collision course with the Kengis powers that be.
The Opposing Forces
Soon in cahoots against him are the lawman Brahe (the performer), the fearsome mill owner Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed early on firing a newly injured worker with a month’s pay as he remains gibbering at the sight his crushed hand, and all others who benefit from a populace who can be bought for a few bottles of the whisky sold by the unsettling store owner the merchant Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, to be fair, Lindmark’s creepiness pales once itinerant painter Beronius arrives in the story (Simon J Berger, delivering an acting turn of rare discomfiting power). If they are – similar to the clergyman – only a little more than caricatures, they still serve as potent archetypes.
Narrative Development
Once the foundations of conflict planted, the moment arrives to proceed to narrative business. The servant from the doctor’s house, Hilda (the actress), accordingly vanishes from the woods. Indications of her flight and bear markings on a tree are found yet she remains completely absent. Gossip and anxieties regarding a human-devouring beast roaming the woods spread, but the pastor holds a different view which he and his ward set out to prove.
An Odd Beast
This Bear Drama is a somewhat odd beast. It creates a fine sense of the bleakness that lets suspicion and prejudice and dark myths thrive based on local folklore that animals can be controlled or possessed by the souls of humans. It avoids idealising the hardscrabble life experienced by the residents, in which violence, whether that of nature or people, lurks constantly on the edges, poised to explode. But the characters rarely become more than ciphers – or perhaps, while the conflicts amid fairness and vengeance, rationality and faith, good and wickedness escalate, emblematic figures in a fable – which stops the entire production truly becoming immersive.
Stylistic Shifts
Additionally, exist the many stylistically clashing instances where the pastor’s ability to discover clues and determine Hilda’s fate becomes nearly laughable. He stands looking at broken milk pots and clumps of hair within storage sheds as a fusion of 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 the boss’s spit to agree that, yes, it was definitely dried blood on the site), before announcing his latest deduction and pulling a body from a bog.
Opposing Goals
The local leaders are bent on demonstrating that Hilda was killed by a bear, maybe to protect the peace, or possibly to protect a fellow elite. The clergyman is bent on establishing the opposite, and the proof so quickly stacks up supporting his view that once more the drama’s plausibility and audience tolerance get strained. At its best, the series is reminiscent of the TV version a few years ago of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the opposing attractions and fears presented by rational thought and religion. In its low points, it’s more like a bear-themed police procedural. Nevertheless, it does seem to offer the answer to that debated question: “Ladies, take the bear.”
To Cook a Bear is on Disney+ now.