A intense debate lately went viral on social media, after a user asked the question for females: which would you prefer be lost in a forest with a man or a bear? Like all the most engaging hypothetical scenarios, it exposed vastly opposing worldviews and life encounters, illuminated divides among genders, and could easily to induce an existential crisis for anyone pondering on it for too long. Additionally, there came the predictable coda in which men of a certain stripe took to the internet to tell women how stupid they were to select the bear and proceeded to limn the consequences they deserved for it. This at least enabled the women who had been hesitating over their choice to decide with a new confidence.
Portraying the Setup
To Cook a Bear effectively dramatises this nifty little setup. The six-part drama is based from Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s 2018 book of the same name (rendered in 2020 for English readers). It follows the tribulations of a pastor (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his family as they come to begin a fresh religious post within Kengis, an isolated village in northern Sweden, in 1852. Within a community with few pleasures, none of the inhabitants particularly appreciate his puritanical approach to alcohol and dancing, yet it is his defense of the poor – particularly the native Sami population, from among whom hails the preacher’s adopted son the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his conviction in social justice and equality that places him in direct opposition against the Kengis local authorities.
The Antagonists
Quickly in cahoots against him include the lawman the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the fearsome factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed early on firing a recently mangled worker with a month’s pay while he is still gibbering at the sight of his pulped hand, and anyone else who profit from a community who can be bought with some containers of the whisky sold by the creepy shopkeeper Lindmark (the actor). However, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes when itinerant painter Beronius appears in the story (the performer, providing a performance of rare unsettling intensity). If they are – similar to the clergyman – only a little more than caricatures, they still serve as potent archetypes.
Narrative Development
With the seeds of tension planted, the moment arrives to get down with the storyline. The servant from the doctor’s house, Hilda (the actress), duly vanishes in the forest. Signs of her escape and bear markings upon a trunk get discovered but she is completely absent. Gossip and anxieties of a man/maid-eating bear roaming the woods circulate, but the pastor has another theory that he and Jussi set out to prove.
An Odd Beast
This Bear Drama is a slightly odd beast. It conjures a strong impression of the bleakness that lets suspicion and bias and dark myths flourish from the native legend that animals might be dominated or inhabited by the souls of men. And it doesn’t idealising the hardscrabble life led by the residents, in which violence, be it from the wild or people, always looms on the edges, waiting to erupt. Yet the personas rarely become more than ciphers – or perhaps, as the struggles between justice and vengeance, rationality and religion, good and evil escalate, emblematic figures within a moral tale – preventing the whole thing fully coming to life.
Tonal Inconsistencies
Additionally, there are the many tonally jarring moments in which the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and discern Hilda’s fate becomes almost risible. He stands observing shattered containers and clumps of hair in hay barns like a combined the Belgian detective the English sleuth – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (neither of whom were required to taste a mixture of blood droplets and saliva from his superior to agree that indeed, it was clearly coagulated blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his latest deduction and extracting a corpse out of a swamp.
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 a fellow elite. The clergyman is intent on proving the opposite, and the proof so quickly accumulates supporting his view that again the show’s credibility and audience tolerance get strained. In its finest moments, the series is reminiscent of the TV version a few years ago of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the opposing attractions and fears offered by rational thought and belief. In its low points, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it appears to provide the answer to the earlier query: “Females, choose the animal.”
To Cook a Bear is on Disney+ now.
