A intense discussion lately spread widely on social media, after a user asked the question to women: would you rather be lost in the woods with a man or with a bear? Similar to the best thought experiments, it revealed vastly opposing perspectives and experiences, illuminated divides between the sexes, and could easily to induce a deep personal dilemma if you thought on it extensively. There was also the almost inevitable coda in which men of a certain stripe came online to tell women how foolish they had been to select the animal and went on to describe the consequences they merited for that choice. This at least allowed those females who were uncertain over their choice to decide with renewed assurance.
Dramatising the Setup
To Cook a Bear skillfully brings to life this nifty little setup. The six-part drama is adapted on Scandinavian writer the novelist’s 2018 novel of the same name (rendered in 2020 for an English audience). It traces the struggles of a pastor (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his household when they arrive to start a new ministry in Kengis, an isolated village in Sweden’s north, in 1852. In a place lacking many joys, not one of the locals especially appreciate his strict stance on drinking and dancing, yet it is his defense of the poor – especially the native Sami population, from among whom comes the pastor’s foster child the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in societal fairness and equal rights that places him in direct opposition with the Kengis powers that be.
The Antagonists
Soon collaborating against him include the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the intimidating factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed early on firing a recently mangled worker with minimal compensation while he is still babbling at the sight his crushed hand, and all others who benefit from a populace who can be bought with some containers of the whisky provided by the unsettling store owner the merchant Lindmark (the actor). However, to be fair, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes when itinerant painter the artist Beronius appears in the story (the performer, delivering an acting turn of exceptional unsettling intensity). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, they still serve as potent archetypes.
Plot Progression
With the seeds of tension planted, the moment arrives to proceed to narrative business. The servant from the doctor’s house, the character Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), accordingly goes missing in the forest. Signs of her escape and animal scratches upon a trunk get discovered yet she remains completely absent. Gossip and anxieties regarding a human-devouring bear prowling the woods circulate, yet the clergyman holds a different view that he and Jussi set out to verify.
An Odd Beast
This Bear Drama is a somewhat peculiar show. It creates a fine sense of the desolation that lets suspicion and bias and dark myths thrive based on local folklore that bears can be controlled or possessed by the souls of men. And it doesn’t romanticise the tough existence experienced by the villagers, in which brutality, whether that of the wild or people, always looms at the periphery, waiting to erupt. Yet the personas rarely become beyond symbols – or perhaps, while the conflicts amid fairness and revenge, logic and religion, good and wickedness intensify, emblematic figures within a moral tale – which stops the whole thing fully becoming immersive.
Stylistic Shifts
And then, there are numerous tonally jarring instances where the pastor’s ability to discover clues and discern the maid’s destiny turns nearly laughable. He positions himself looking at broken milk pots and clumps of hair within storage sheds as a fusion of Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – with Jussi a rather hapless assistant figure (none of whom were required to lick a mixture of blood spatter and the boss’s spit to agree that, yes, it was definitely coagulated blood at the crime scene), before announcing his latest deduction and extracting a corpse out of a swamp.
Clashing Agendas
The local leaders are determined proving that Hilda met her end by a bear, perhaps to preserve the peace, or possibly to shield one of their own. The clergyman is intent on establishing the opposite, and the evidence so quickly stacks up supporting his view that once more the drama’s plausibility and audience tolerance get strained. At its best, To Cook a Bear evokes memories of the TV version some years back of the author’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the opposing allures and fears presented by rational thought and religion. At its worst, it’s more like a bear-themed police procedural. Nevertheless, it appears to offer the response to that debated question: “Ladies, take the bear.”
The series is on Disney+ now.
