An intense discussion lately went viral across online platforms, after a user asked the question for females: which would you prefer be lost in a forest alongside a male or with a bear? Similar to the most engaging thought experiments, it exposed wildly different perspectives and life encounters, illuminated chasms between the sexes, and was likely to induce a deep personal dilemma if you thought on it for too long. There was also the almost inevitable coda in which men of a certain stripe took to the internet to tell females how foolish they were to select the animal and went on to describe the consequences they merited for that choice. This at least enabled those females who were uncertain about their decision to make it with a new confidence.
Portraying the Scenario
To Cook a Bear skillfully brings to life this clever little setup. This six-episode drama is based from Scandinavian writer the novelist’s 2018 book of the same name (rendered two years later for an English audience). It traces the struggles of a clergyman (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his family as they come to start a new ministry in Kengis, a remote settlement in Sweden’s north, in 1852. In a place lacking many joys, not one of the locals especially warm to his puritanical stance on drinking and dancing, yet it is his protection of the poor – especially the native Sami population, from among whom comes the preacher’s adopted son Jussi (the young actor) – and his conviction in societal fairness and equality that places him in direct opposition against the Kengis local authorities.
The Antagonists
Quickly collaborating against him include the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the fearsome factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed early on dismissing a newly injured worker with a month’s pay as he remains gibbering upon seeing his crushed hand, and all others who benefit from a populace easily swayed with some containers of liquor sold by the unsettling shopkeeper Lindmark (the actor). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes when itinerant painter Beronius arrives on the scene (the performer, providing an acting turn of rare discomfiting power). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – only a little more than caricatures, they are at least potent archetypes.
Plot Progression
Once the foundations of conflict planted, the moment arrives to get down with the storyline. The servant employed by the doctor, Hilda (the actress), accordingly goes missing in the forest. Signs of her escape and animal scratches on a tree get discovered but she is nowhere to be seen. Gossip and fears of a man/maid-eating beast prowling the woods circulate, yet the clergyman holds a different view that he and Jussi embark to prove.
A Strange Creation
This Bear Drama is a slightly peculiar show. It creates a strong impression of the bleakness that lets distrust and bias and dark myths flourish from the native legend that bears can be controlled or inhabited by the spirits of humans. And it doesn’t idealising the hardscrabble life experienced by the residents, where violence, be it from the wild or mankind, lurks constantly at the periphery, poised to explode. Yet the personas rarely become beyond symbols – or perhaps, as the struggles amid fairness and vengeance, rationality and religion, good and wickedness intensify, representative characters in a fable – which stops the whole thing fully becoming immersive.
Tonal Inconsistencies
Additionally, there are numerous tonally jarring instances where the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and discern the maid’s destiny turns almost risible. He stands looking at broken milk pots and clumps of hair in hay barns like a combined Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – alongside Jussi a rather hapless assistant figure (none of whom were required to taste a blend of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to agree that indeed, it was clearly coagulated blood on the site), before announcing his newest conclusion and extracting a body from a bog.
Clashing Agendas
The village elite are bent on proving that Hilda met her end by an animal, perhaps to preserve the calm, perhaps to protect one of their own. The pastor is bent on proving otherwise, and the proof so quickly accumulates supporting his view that once more the drama’s plausibility and the viewer’s patience get strained. In its finest moments, the series is reminiscent of the TV version some years back of Sarah Perry’s The Essex Serpent, through its portrayal of the opposing allures and terrors presented by science and religion. At its worst, it resembles a bear-themed police procedural. Nevertheless, it does seem to provide the response to that debated question: “Females, choose the animal.”
To Cook a Bear is on Disney+ currently.
