A intense discussion lately spread widely across online platforms, following someone posed a query for females: which would you prefer find yourself stranded in a forest with a man or with a bear? Like all the best hypothetical scenarios, it revealed vastly opposing perspectives and experiences, illuminated divides among genders, and could easily cause an existential crisis for anyone pondering about it extensively. Additionally, there came the predictable follow-up in which men of a certain stripe came online to inform women how stupid they had been to select the animal and proceeded to limn the consequences they deserved for that choice. This at least allowed those females who were uncertain about their decision to make it with renewed assurance.
Portraying the Scenario
To Cook a Bear effectively dramatises this nifty little setup. This six-episode drama is based from Swedish author the novelist’s 2018 book of the same name (translated in 2020 for English readers). It follows the tribulations of a clergyman (the lead actor) and his household when they arrive to start a fresh religious post within Kengis, a remote settlement in northern Sweden, in 1852. Within a community lacking many joys, not one of the locals particularly warm to his strict approach to alcohol and dancing, but it is his defense of the poor – especially the indigenous Sami, from among whom hails the pastor’s foster child the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his belief in societal fairness and equal rights that sets him on a collision course with the Kengis local authorities.
The Opposing Forces
Quickly collaborating against him are the lawman Brahe (the performer), the fearsome mill owner Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen initially dismissing a newly injured worker with a month’s pay while he is still babbling at the sight his crushed hand, and anyone else who profit from a community easily swayed for a few bottles of the whisky sold by the creepy store owner the merchant Lindmark (the actor). However, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness pales when travelling artist Beronius arrives on the scene (the performer, delivering an acting turn of exceptional unsettling intensity). If they are – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, they are at least potent archetypes.
Plot Progression
With the seeds of conflict planted, it is time to proceed to narrative business. The maid employed by the doctor, the character Hilda (the actress), duly goes missing in the forest. Signs of her escape and bear markings on a tree get discovered yet she remains completely absent. Gossip and anxieties regarding a human-devouring bear roaming the woodland circulate, but the pastor holds a different view which he and his ward embark to prove.
An Odd Beast
To Cook a Bear is a slightly peculiar show. It creates a fine sense of the desolation that lets suspicion and bias and grim legends thrive from the native legend that bears might be dominated or possessed by the souls of men. It avoids romanticise the hardscrabble life led by the villagers, in which brutality, whether that of the wild or mankind, lurks constantly on the edges, waiting to erupt. Yet the personas rarely become more than ciphers – or maybe, as the struggles between justice and vengeance, rationality and religion, virtue and wickedness intensify, emblematic figures within a moral tale – which stops the entire production fully becoming immersive.
Stylistic Shifts
Additionally, there are the many stylistically clashing moments in which the clergyman’s skill to discover clues and determine Hilda’s fate becomes almost risible. He stands observing broken milk pots and strands of fur in hay barns like a combined the Belgian detective and Sherlock Holmes – alongside Jussi a rather hapless assistant figure (neither of whom were required to lick a blend of blood spatter and the boss’s spit to confirm that indeed, it was definitely coagulated blood on the site), prior to declaring his latest deduction and pulling a body out of a swamp.
Clashing Agendas
The local leaders are determined proving that Hilda met her end by an animal, maybe to protect the peace, or possibly to protect a fellow elite. The clergyman is intent on establishing otherwise, and the evidence so quickly stacks up supporting his view that again the drama’s plausibility and audience tolerance get strained. At its best, the series evokes memories of the adaptation some years back of the author’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the opposing attractions and fears presented by science and belief. At its worst, it’s more like Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it appears to offer the response to the earlier query: “Females, choose the animal.”
To Cook a Bear is on Disney+ currently.
