A heated discussion recently spread widely on social media, following someone asked the question to women: would you rather be lost in the woods alongside a male or a bear? Similar to the best thought experiments, it revealed vastly opposing worldviews and life encounters, illuminated divides among genders, and could easily to induce a deep personal dilemma if you thought on it for too long. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable follow-up in which some males came online to tell women how foolish they had been for choosing the bear and went on to describe the consequences they deserved for it. This at minimum allowed the women who were uncertain over their choice to make it with a new confidence.
Portraying the Scenario
To Cook a Bear effectively dramatises this clever small premise. This six-episode drama is based from Swedish author the novelist’s 2018 book of the same name (translated two years later for English readers). It follows the struggles of a clergyman (the lead actor) and his family when they arrive to start a new ministry within Kengis, an isolated settlement in northern Sweden, in 1852. Within a community lacking many joys, not one of the inhabitants especially appreciate his puritanical stance on alcohol and dancing, yet it is his defense of the poor – particularly the native Sami population, from among whom hails the preacher’s foster child the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his conviction in societal fairness and equality that places him in direct opposition with the Kengis local authorities.
The Opposing Forces
Soon collaborating opposing him are the sheriff the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the fearsome factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (the actress), seen early on firing a recently mangled worker with minimal compensation as he remains gibbering at the sight of his pulped hand, and anyone else who benefit from a populace who can be bought for a few bottles of liquor provided by the unsettling store owner Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes once travelling artist the artist Beronius arrives in the story (the performer, delivering an acting turn of rare discomfiting power). If they are – like the pastor himself – only a little more being stereotypes, they are at least potent archetypes.
Narrative Development
Once the foundations of conflict planted, it is time to proceed with the storyline. The maid 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 prowling the woods spread, but the pastor has another theory which he and his ward embark to prove.
An Odd Beast
To Cook a Bear is a slightly peculiar show. It creates a strong impression of the desolation that lets suspicion and prejudice and dark myths flourish from the native legend that bears can be controlled or possessed by the spirits of men. And it doesn’t romanticise the tough existence experienced by the villagers, in which brutality, be it from nature or mankind, lurks constantly on the edges, poised to explode. But the characters rarely become beyond symbols – or maybe, as the struggles amid fairness and vengeance, logic and religion, virtue and wickedness escalate, representative characters in a fable – which stops the whole thing fully coming to life.
Stylistic Shifts
And then, there are numerous tonally jarring moments where the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and determine Hilda’s fate turns almost risible. He positions himself looking at broken milk pots and clumps of hair within storage sheds like a combined Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – alongside Jussi a rather hapless Hastings-cum-Watson (none of whom were required to taste a mixture of blood droplets and the boss’s spit to confirm that indeed, it was clearly coagulated blood at the crime scene), before announcing his latest deduction and extracting a body out of a swamp.
Opposing Goals
The village elite are bent on proving that the maid met her end by an animal, maybe to protect the calm, perhaps to protect one of their own. The clergyman is intent on establishing the opposite, and the proof so rapidly stacks up in his favour that once more the show’s credibility and the viewer’s patience get strained. At its best, the series is reminiscent of the TV version a few years ago of Sarah Perry’s The Essex Serpent, through its portrayal of the competing allures and terrors offered by science and belief. At its worst, it’s more like a bear-themed police procedural. Still, it does seem to provide the answer to that debated question: “Females, choose the animal.”
To Cook a Bear is on Disney+ now.
