A heated debate recently went viral across online platforms, after someone posed a query for females: which would you prefer be lost in a forest with a man or a bear? Similar to the most engaging thought experiments, it revealed wildly different worldviews and life encounters, illuminated chasms among genders, and was likely cause a deep personal dilemma if you thought about it for too long. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable coda where men of a certain stripe took to the internet to inform women how stupid they were to select the bear and went on to describe the punishments they deserved for it. This at minimum enabled the women who had been hesitating about their decision to decide with a new confidence.
Portraying the Scenario
To Cook a Bear effectively brings to life this nifty little setup. This six-episode drama is based on Swedish author the novelist’s 2018 book with the identical title (rendered in 2020 for an English audience). It follows the tribulations of a clergyman (the lead actor) and his household as they come to start a new ministry in Kengis, a remote village in northern Sweden, in 1852. In a place with few pleasures, none of the locals particularly appreciate his puritanical approach to alcohol and dancing, yet it is his protection of the poor – particularly the native Sami population, from among whom comes the preacher’s foster child the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his conviction in societal fairness and equality that sets him in direct opposition against the Kengis powers that be.
The Antagonists
Soon in cahoots opposing him are the sheriff the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating mill owner Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed initially dismissing a recently mangled worker with a month’s pay as he remains gibbering upon seeing of his pulped hand, and anyone else who profit from a populace easily swayed with some containers of liquor provided by the unsettling store owner Lindmark (the actor). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness pales when travelling artist the artist Beronius appears in the story (the performer, providing a performance of rare unsettling intensity). If they are – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, they are at least potent archetypes.
Plot Progression
With the seeds of conflict sown, the moment arrives to proceed to narrative business. The maid from the doctor’s house, the character Hilda (the actress), duly goes missing from the woods. Signs of her escape and bear markings on a tree are found but she is nowhere to be seen. Rumours and fears of a man/maid-eating bear roaming the woodland spread, but the pastor has another theory which he and his ward embark to prove.
An Odd Beast
This Bear Drama is a slightly peculiar show. It conjures a strong impression of the desolation that allows distrust and prejudice and dark myths flourish based on local folklore that bears can be controlled or possessed by the spirits of humans. And it doesn’t idealising the tough existence experienced by the residents, in which violence, be it from the wild or mankind, lurks constantly at the periphery, poised to explode. Yet the personas rarely become more than ciphers – or maybe, while the conflicts between justice and revenge, logic and religion, virtue and evil intensify, emblematic figures within a moral tale – which stops the entire production truly coming to life.
Stylistic Shifts
Additionally, exist numerous tonally jarring instances in which the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and discern the maid’s destiny becomes almost risible. He positions himself observing broken milk pots and clumps of hair within storage sheds like a combined Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – alongside Jussi a rather hapless assistant figure (none of whom had to taste a blend of blood droplets and the boss’s spit to agree that, yes, it was definitely dried blood on the site), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and pulling a body from a bog.
Clashing Agendas
The local leaders are determined proving that the maid was killed by an animal, maybe to protect the calm, or possibly to protect one of their own. The clergyman is bent on proving otherwise, and the evidence so quickly stacks up in his favour 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 a few years ago of the author’s The Essex Serpent, with its evocation of the competing attractions and fears offered by rational thought and religion. In its low points, it’s more like a bear-themed police procedural. Nevertheless, it appears to provide the response to the earlier query: “Females, choose the animal.”
To Cook a Bear is on Disney+ now.
