An intense discussion lately went viral on social media, after a user asked the question for females: would you rather be lost in a forest alongside a male or a bear? Like all the best hypothetical scenarios, it revealed wildly different worldviews and experiences, illuminated divides between the sexes, and could easily to induce an existential crisis for anyone pondering about it for too long. There was also the predictable coda in which some males came online to tell women how stupid they had been to select the animal and went on to limn the consequences they merited for that choice. This at minimum enabled those females who were uncertain about their decision to decide with a new confidence.
Dramatising the Setup
To Cook a Bear effectively brings to life this nifty small premise. This six-episode series is based from Swedish author the novelist’s 2018 novel with the identical title (rendered in 2020 for English readers). It traces the struggles of a pastor (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his family as they come to start a new ministry within Kengis, an isolated settlement in northern Sweden, in 1852. Within a community lacking many joys, none of the inhabitants particularly warm to his puritanical stance on drinking and dancing, but it is his protection of the poor – especially the indigenous Sami, from among whom comes the pastor’s foster child Jussi (the young actor) – and his conviction in societal fairness and equal rights that places him on a collision course with the Kengis local authorities.
The Opposing Forces
Soon in cahoots opposing him include the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the fearsome factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed initially dismissing a recently mangled laborer with minimal compensation as he remains babbling upon seeing his crushed hand, and all others who profit from a community easily swayed with some containers of liquor sold by the unsettling shopkeeper the merchant Lindmark (the actor). However, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes once itinerant painter Beronius arrives in the story (Simon J Berger, providing an acting turn of exceptional discomfiting power). While they remain – like the pastor himself – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, they still serve as effective ones.
Narrative Development
Once the foundations of conflict planted, the moment arrives to get down with the storyline. The maid employed by the doctor, the character Hilda (the actress), accordingly vanishes from the woods. Indications of her escape and bear markings on a tree are found yet she remains completely absent. Rumours and anxieties of a man/maid-eating beast roaming the woodland circulate, yet the clergyman holds a different view which he and his ward set out to prove.
An Odd Beast
To Cook a Bear is a slightly peculiar show. It conjures a strong impression of the desolation that allows distrust and bias and dark myths flourish from the native legend that bears might be dominated or inhabited by the souls of men. It avoids romanticise the tough existence experienced by the residents, where violence, be it from nature or mankind, always looms at the periphery, poised to explode. Yet the personas seldom evolve beyond symbols – or maybe, while the conflicts between justice and revenge, logic and religion, virtue and wickedness escalate, representative characters in a fable – which stops the whole thing truly coming to life.
Tonal Inconsistencies
And then, exist numerous tonally jarring moments in which the pastor’s ability to discover clues and discern Hilda’s fate turns nearly laughable. He positions himself observing broken milk pots and strands of fur within storage sheds like a combined the Belgian detective the English sleuth – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (neither of whom were required to taste a mixture of blood droplets and the boss’s spit to confirm that indeed, it was clearly dried blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his latest deduction and extracting a body out of a swamp.
Opposing Goals
The local leaders are determined proving that Hilda was killed by a bear, maybe to protect the peace, or possibly to shield a fellow elite. The pastor is bent on proving otherwise, and the evidence so rapidly accumulates supporting his view that once more the drama’s plausibility and audience tolerance are tested. At its best, the series evokes memories of the TV version a few years ago of Sarah Perry’s The Essex Serpent, through its portrayal of the competing attractions and fears offered by rational thought and belief. In its low points, it’s more like Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it appears to offer the response to that debated question: “Ladies, take the bear.”
To Cook a Bear is on Disney+ currently.
