An intense debate lately went viral on social media, after a user posed a query to women: would you rather be lost in the woods alongside a male or with a bear? Like all the best hypothetical scenarios, it revealed vastly opposing worldviews and life encounters, illuminated divides between the sexes, and could easily to induce a deep personal dilemma if you thought on it for too long. There was also the almost inevitable follow-up where men of a certain stripe came online to inform females how stupid they were to select the animal and proceeded to limn the punishments they deserved for that choice. This at minimum enabled the women who had been hesitating over their choice to decide with a new confidence.
Dramatising the Setup
To Cook a Bear effectively dramatises this nifty small premise. This six-episode series is adapted on Scandinavian writer the novelist’s 2018 book of the same name (translated two years later for English readers). It follows the struggles of a pastor (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his household when they arrive to begin a fresh religious post within Kengis, a remote village in Sweden’s north, during the mid-19th century. Within a community with few pleasures, not one of the inhabitants particularly warm to his strict stance on drinking and dancing, but it is his defense of the poor – particularly the indigenous Sami, from which comes the pastor’s foster child Jussi (the young actor) – and his conviction in societal fairness and equal rights that places him in direct opposition against the Kengis local authorities.
The Opposing Forces
Soon in cahoots against him include the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the fearsome factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen early on dismissing a newly injured laborer with a month’s pay while he is still gibbering upon seeing his crushed hand, and anyone else who profit from a community who can be bought with some containers of liquor provided by the creepy store owner the merchant Lindmark (the actor). However, to be fair, Lindmark’s creepiness pales once itinerant painter Beronius arrives in the story (the performer, delivering a performance of rare unsettling intensity). If they are – similar to the clergyman – only a little more being stereotypes, they still serve as effective ones.
Plot Progression
With the seeds of conflict planted, the moment arrives to proceed with the storyline. The maid employed by the doctor, Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), duly vanishes in the forest. Indications of her escape and bear markings on a tree are found but she is nowhere to be seen. Gossip and fears regarding a human-devouring bear roaming the woodland circulate, but the pastor has another theory that he and Jussi embark to verify.
A Strange Creation
To Cook a Bear is a somewhat peculiar show. It creates a strong impression of the bleakness that lets suspicion and prejudice and grim legends thrive from the native legend that bears can be controlled or inhabited by the souls of men. It avoids romanticise the hardscrabble life led by the villagers, in which violence, be it from nature or mankind, always looms on the edges, waiting to erupt. Yet the personas rarely become more than ciphers – or maybe, as the struggles amid fairness and vengeance, rationality and faith, virtue and wickedness escalate, representative characters within a moral tale – preventing the entire production fully becoming immersive.
Tonal Inconsistencies
And then, there are numerous stylistically clashing moments where the pastor’s ability to discover clues and determine Hilda’s fate turns nearly laughable. He positions himself looking at shattered containers and strands of fur within storage sheds as a fusion of the Belgian detective and Sherlock Holmes – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (neither of whom were required to taste a blend of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to confirm that indeed, it was definitely coagulated blood on the site), prior to declaring his newest conclusion 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 calm, or possibly to shield one of their own. The pastor is intent on proving the opposite, and the proof so quickly accumulates supporting his view that once more the drama’s plausibility and audience tolerance get strained. In its finest moments, the series is reminiscent of the adaptation some years back of the author’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the competing allures and terrors presented by science and belief. In its low points, it’s more like a bear-themed police procedural. Still, it appears to provide the answer to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”
To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ currently.
