A heated debate recently went viral on social media, following someone asked a query for females: which would you prefer be lost in the woods alongside a male or a bear? Similar to the best thought experiments, it exposed wildly different worldviews and life encounters, highlighted divides between the sexes, and could easily cause a deep personal dilemma if you thought about it extensively. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable coda in which some males took to the internet to tell females how stupid they were to select the bear and proceeded to limn the consequences they deserved for it. This at least enabled those females who were uncertain over their choice to make it with a new confidence.
Dramatising the Scenario
To Cook a Bear skillfully brings to life this clever little setup. This six-episode series is adapted on Swedish author the novelist’s 2018 book with the identical title (rendered two years later for English readers). It follows the tribulations of a pastor (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his family as they come to start a new ministry in Kengis, an isolated village in Sweden’s north, during the mid-19th century. In a place lacking many joys, not one of the inhabitants especially warm to his strict approach to drinking and dancing, yet it is his defense of the poor – especially 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 powers that be.
The Opposing Forces
Soon in cahoots opposing him are the sheriff the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the intimidating mill owner Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed early on firing a newly injured laborer with a month’s pay while he is still gibbering at the sight of his pulped hand, and anyone else who profit from a community easily swayed with some containers of the whisky provided by the unsettling store owner the merchant Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). However, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness pales once travelling artist Beronius appears in the story (Simon J Berger, delivering a performance of rare discomfiting power). While they remain – like the pastor himself – only a little more being stereotypes, they still serve as effective ones.
Narrative Development
With the seeds of conflict sown, it is time to proceed with the storyline. The maid from the doctor’s house, Hilda (the actress), accordingly goes missing from the woods. Indications of her flight and bear markings upon a trunk are found yet she remains nowhere to be seen. Gossip and fears of a man/maid-eating bear roaming the woods circulate, yet the clergyman holds a different view that he and Jussi set out to prove.
A Strange Creation
This Bear Drama is a somewhat odd beast. It creates a strong impression of the bleakness that allows suspicion and bias and grim legends flourish based on local folklore that bears might be dominated or possessed by the spirits of humans. And it doesn’t romanticise the hardscrabble life experienced by the villagers, where brutality, be it from nature or people, lurks constantly at the periphery, waiting to erupt. Yet the personas rarely become beyond symbols – or perhaps, as the struggles amid fairness and vengeance, logic and faith, good and wickedness intensify, representative characters in a fable – preventing the whole thing truly coming to life.
Tonal Inconsistencies
Additionally, there are numerous stylistically clashing instances in which the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and determine the maid’s destiny becomes nearly laughable. He positions himself looking at broken milk pots and clumps of hair within storage sheds like a combined the Belgian detective and Sherlock Holmes – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (none of whom had to taste a mixture of blood spatter and the boss’s spit to agree that indeed, it was clearly coagulated blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and pulling a corpse from a bog.
Opposing Goals
The local leaders are bent on demonstrating that the maid met her end by an animal, perhaps to protect the calm, perhaps to protect a fellow elite. The clergyman is bent on establishing the opposite, and the evidence so quickly accumulates in his favour that again the drama’s plausibility and audience tolerance are tested. In its finest moments, the series is reminiscent of the TV version some years back of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the opposing allures and fears offered by science and religion. In its low points, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Nevertheless, it does seem to provide the response to the earlier query: “Females, choose the animal.”
The series is on Disney+ currently.
