An heated discussion lately went viral on social media, following a user asked a query for females: would you rather find yourself stranded in the woods with a man or with a bear? Similar to the best thought experiments, it revealed wildly different perspectives and life encounters, highlighted chasms between the sexes, and was likely cause a deep personal dilemma for anyone pondering on it extensively. There was also the almost inevitable coda in which some males took to the internet to tell women how foolish they were to select the bear and proceeded to describe the consequences they merited for that choice. This at least allowed the women who were uncertain about their decision to make it 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 with the identical title (translated in 2020 for English readers). It traces the tribulations of a pastor (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his household as they come to begin a new ministry in Kengis, an isolated settlement in northern Sweden, in 1852. In a place lacking many joys, none of the locals particularly appreciate his puritanical stance on alcohol and dancing, yet it is his defense of impoverished people – especially the native Sami population, from which comes the preacher’s foster child Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his conviction in social justice and equal rights that places him in direct opposition with the Kengis powers that be.
The Opposing Forces
Soon collaborating against him are the lawman Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating mill owner Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed early on firing a newly injured laborer with minimal compensation while he is still babbling at the sight his crushed hand, and anyone else who profit from a populace easily swayed for a few bottles of liquor sold by the creepy shopkeeper Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, to be fair, Lindmark’s creepiness pales once travelling artist Beronius appears on the scene (the performer, delivering a performance of rare discomfiting power). If they are – like the pastor himself – just slightly beyond than caricatures, they still serve as potent archetypes.
Narrative Development
With the seeds of conflict sown, it is time to get down to narrative business. The maid from the doctor’s house, Hilda (the actress), accordingly vanishes in the forest. Indications of her escape and animal scratches on a tree are found but she is nowhere to be seen. Rumours and anxieties of a man/maid-eating bear prowling the woodland spread, yet the clergyman has another theory that he and Jussi set out to verify.
A Strange Creation
To Cook a Bear is a somewhat peculiar show. It creates a strong impression of the bleakness that allows suspicion and prejudice and dark myths thrive from the native legend that bears might be dominated or inhabited by the spirits of men. And it doesn’t idealising the tough existence led by the villagers, where violence, whether that of the wild or people, always looms at the periphery, waiting to erupt. Yet the personas rarely become more than ciphers – or maybe, as the struggles between justice and revenge, logic and religion, virtue and evil escalate, emblematic figures within a moral tale – which stops the whole thing fully coming to life.
Stylistic Shifts
And then, there are numerous tonally jarring moments where the pastor’s ability to discover clues and determine the maid’s destiny turns nearly laughable. He stands looking at shattered containers and clumps of hair within storage sheds like a combined Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – alongside Jussi a rather hapless Hastings-cum-Watson (neither of whom were required to lick a mixture of blood spatter and the boss’s spit to agree that indeed, it was clearly coagulated blood at the crime scene), before announcing his latest deduction and pulling a body from a bog.
Opposing Goals
The village elite are bent on proving that Hilda met her end by a bear, perhaps to preserve the calm, perhaps to shield one of their own. The clergyman is bent on proving the opposite, and the evidence so rapidly stacks up supporting his view that again the show’s credibility and audience tolerance are tested. At its best, To Cook a Bear is reminiscent of the TV version a few years ago of Sarah Perry’s The Essex Serpent, through its portrayal of the opposing allures and fears offered by rational thought and belief. In its low points, it’s more like Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it does seem to provide the answer to the earlier query: “Females, choose the animal.”
The series streams on Disney+ now.
