An heated debate lately went viral across online platforms, following a user asked the question to women: which would you prefer find yourself stranded in a forest with a man or a bear? Similar to the best thought experiments, it exposed vastly opposing worldviews and life encounters, highlighted divides between the sexes, and was likely cause a deep personal dilemma if you thought on it for too long. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable follow-up where men of a certain stripe took to the internet to inform females how foolish they were to select the bear and went on to describe the consequences they deserved for that choice. This at minimum allowed the women who were uncertain 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 series is adapted on Swedish author the novelist’s 2018 novel of the same name (rendered in 2020 for English readers). It traces the tribulations of a pastor (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his household when they arrive to begin a fresh religious post in Kengis, an isolated settlement in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. In a place lacking many joys, none of the inhabitants especially warm to his strict stance on drinking and dancing, yet it is his protection of the poor – particularly the indigenous Sami, from among whom hails the preacher’s adopted son the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in social justice and equality that sets him on a collision course against the Kengis local authorities.
The Opposing Forces
Quickly in cahoots against him are the lawman Brahe (the performer), the intimidating factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen early on dismissing a recently mangled laborer with minimal compensation while he is still gibbering at the sight his crushed hand, and all others who benefit from a populace easily swayed for a few bottles of the whisky provided by the creepy shopkeeper Lindmark (the actor). However, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness pales when itinerant painter the artist Beronius arrives in the story (the performer, providing a performance of exceptional unsettling intensity). If they are – like the pastor himself – just slightly beyond than caricatures, they are at least effective ones.
Plot Progression
Once the foundations of tension sown, it is time to get down to narrative business. The servant employed by the doctor, Hilda (the actress), accordingly vanishes from the woods. Indications of her flight and animal scratches upon a trunk are found but she is nowhere to be seen. Rumours and anxieties regarding a human-devouring bear prowling the woodland circulate, yet the clergyman holds a different view which he and his ward set out to verify.
An Odd Beast
To Cook a Bear is a somewhat peculiar show. It conjures a strong impression of the desolation that allows distrust and bias and dark myths flourish from the native legend that animals can be controlled or inhabited by the souls of humans. And it doesn’t idealising the hardscrabble life led by the residents, where brutality, whether that of nature or mankind, lurks constantly at the periphery, poised to explode. But the characters seldom evolve beyond symbols – or maybe, as the struggles between justice and vengeance, logic and religion, virtue and wickedness intensify, representative characters in a fable – which stops the whole thing fully coming to life.
Stylistic Shifts
And then, there are the many tonally jarring moments where the pastor’s ability to discover clues and determine the maid’s destiny becomes nearly laughable. He positions himself observing shattered containers and clumps of hair in hay barns like a combined the Belgian detective and Sherlock Holmes – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (neither of whom were required to lick a mixture of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to confirm that indeed, it was definitely coagulated blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and extracting a corpse out of a swamp.
Opposing Goals
The local leaders are determined demonstrating that the maid met her end by a bear, maybe to protect the peace, or possibly to shield one of their own. The pastor is bent on establishing otherwise, and the evidence so rapidly stacks up supporting his view that once more the show’s credibility and audience tolerance are tested. In its finest moments, the series evokes memories of the TV version a few years ago of the author’s The Essex Serpent, with its evocation of the opposing attractions and terrors presented by science and belief. In its low points, it’s more like Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it appears to provide the response to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”
To Cook a Bear is on Disney+ currently.
