A heated discussion recently went viral across online platforms, after a user posed a query for females: would you rather find yourself stranded in a forest with a man or a bear? Like all the best thought experiments, it revealed vastly opposing worldviews and life encounters, highlighted chasms among genders, and could easily to induce an existential crisis for anyone pondering about it extensively. Additionally, there came the predictable follow-up in which some males came online to tell females how foolish they had been for choosing the animal and went on to limn the consequences they deserved for it. This at least enabled the women who had been hesitating about their decision to make it with renewed assurance.
Portraying the Setup
To Cook a Bear effectively brings to life this clever little setup. The six-part drama is based on Swedish author the novelist’s 2018 novel with the identical title (translated in 2020 for English readers). It follows the tribulations of a pastor (the lead actor) and his family when they arrive to start a new ministry within Kengis, an isolated settlement in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. Within a community with few pleasures, not one of the inhabitants particularly warm to his puritanical approach to alcohol and revelry, yet it is his protection of the poor – particularly the indigenous Sami, from among whom hails the pastor’s adopted son the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his conviction in societal fairness and equal rights that places him on a collision course against the Kengis local authorities.
The Opposing Forces
Quickly in cahoots against him are the lawman Brahe (the performer), the intimidating factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (the actress), observed initially firing a recently mangled worker with minimal compensation while he is still babbling upon seeing his crushed hand, and all others who benefit from a community who can be bought with some containers of the whisky sold by the unsettling store owner the merchant Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). However, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness pales when travelling artist Beronius appears on the scene (the performer, delivering a performance of rare discomfiting power). If they are – similar to the clergyman – only a little more than caricatures, they still serve as potent archetypes.
Plot Progression
Once the foundations of tension planted, the moment arrives to get down to narrative business. The maid employed by the doctor, Hilda (the actress), accordingly goes missing from the woods. Indications of her flight and bear markings on a tree are found but she is nowhere to be seen. Rumours and anxieties of a man/maid-eating bear prowling the woods circulate, but the pastor holds a different view that he and Jussi embark to verify.
A Strange Creation
This Bear Drama is a slightly odd beast. It conjures a fine sense of the desolation that allows distrust and prejudice and dark myths thrive from the native legend that animals can be controlled or inhabited by the spirits of humans. And it doesn’t romanticise the tough existence experienced by the residents, in which violence, whether that of the wild or mankind, lurks constantly at the periphery, poised to explode. But the characters rarely become beyond symbols – or perhaps, while the conflicts amid fairness and revenge, rationality and faith, good and evil escalate, representative characters within a moral tale – preventing the entire production fully becoming immersive.
Tonal Inconsistencies
Additionally, there are numerous tonally jarring moments in which the clergyman’s skill to discover clues and discern the maid’s destiny turns nearly laughable. He positions himself observing shattered containers and strands of fur in hay barns like a combined the Belgian detective the English sleuth – alongside Jussi a rather hapless Hastings-cum-Watson (neither of whom had to taste a blend of blood spatter and the boss’s spit to agree that indeed, it was clearly coagulated blood on the site), before announcing his latest deduction and pulling a body from a bog.
Opposing Goals
The village elite are bent on demonstrating that Hilda was killed by a bear, perhaps to preserve the peace, perhaps to protect one of their own. The clergyman is intent on proving otherwise, and the proof so rapidly accumulates supporting his view that once more the show’s credibility and audience tolerance are tested. 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 opposing attractions and fears offered by science and religion. At its worst, it’s more like a bear-themed police procedural. Nevertheless, it does seem to provide the response to the earlier query: “Females, choose the animal.”
To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ currently.
