A heated discussion lately spread widely on social media, following someone asked the question for females: would you rather find yourself stranded in the woods with a man or a bear? Similar to the best thought experiments, it exposed wildly different worldviews and experiences, illuminated chasms between the sexes, and was likely cause a deep personal dilemma for anyone pondering on it extensively. Additionally, there came the predictable follow-up in which some males came online to tell women how stupid they had been for choosing the bear and proceeded to limn the punishments they deserved for it. This at least enabled those females who were uncertain about their decision to decide with a new confidence.
Dramatising the Setup
To Cook a Bear skillfully dramatises this nifty small premise. The six-part drama is adapted from Swedish author the novelist’s 2018 book with the identical title (rendered two years later for English readers). It traces the tribulations of a clergyman (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his household when they arrive to begin a new ministry within Kengis, a remote village in Sweden’s north, during the mid-19th century. In a place with few pleasures, not one of the locals especially warm to his strict approach to alcohol and revelry, yet it is his protection of impoverished people – especially the native Sami population, from among whom comes the preacher’s foster child the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his conviction in social justice and equal rights that places him on a collision course against the Kengis powers that be.
The Antagonists
Soon collaborating against him are the lawman Brahe (the performer), the fearsome mill owner Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed initially dismissing a newly injured worker with a month’s pay while he is still gibbering 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 creepy shopkeeper the merchant Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). However, to be fair, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes once travelling artist the artist Beronius arrives in the story (Simon J Berger, providing an acting turn of exceptional unsettling intensity). If they are – similar to the clergyman – only a little more being stereotypes, they are at least effective ones.
Narrative Development
Once the foundations of conflict sown, the moment arrives to proceed with the storyline. The maid from the doctor’s house, Hilda (the actress), accordingly goes missing in the forest. Signs of her flight and bear markings on a tree get discovered yet she remains completely absent. Gossip and anxieties of a man/maid-eating beast roaming the woodland spread, but the pastor holds a different view which he and his ward set out to prove.
A Strange Creation
This Bear Drama is a slightly peculiar show. It creates a fine sense of the desolation that allows suspicion and prejudice and grim legends flourish based on local folklore that animals might be dominated or possessed by the spirits of humans. It avoids idealising the tough existence experienced by the villagers, where brutality, be it from nature or mankind, always looms at the periphery, poised to explode. Yet the personas rarely become more than ciphers – or perhaps, while the conflicts amid fairness and revenge, logic and religion, virtue and evil escalate, emblematic figures in a fable – preventing the whole thing fully becoming immersive.
Tonal Inconsistencies
And then, exist numerous tonally jarring instances where the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and determine the maid’s destiny becomes nearly laughable. He positions himself observing shattered containers and strands of fur in hay barns as a fusion of Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – with Jussi a rather hapless assistant figure (neither of whom had to taste a blend of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to confirm that, yes, it was clearly coagulated blood on the site), before announcing his newest conclusion and extracting a body out of a swamp.
Clashing Agendas
The village elite are determined demonstrating that the maid was killed by a bear, perhaps to protect the peace, perhaps to protect a fellow elite. The pastor is bent on establishing the opposite, and the proof so quickly accumulates supporting his view that once more the drama’s plausibility and the viewer’s patience are tested. In its finest moments, the series evokes memories of the adaptation some years back of the author’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the opposing allures and fears presented by science and belief. In its low points, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it does seem to offer the response to that debated question: “Ladies, take the bear.”
To Cook a Bear is on Disney+ currently.
