A intense discussion lately went viral on social media, after a user posed the question to women: which would you prefer be lost in the woods alongside a male or with a bear? Like all the most engaging hypothetical scenarios, it exposed wildly different worldviews and experiences, illuminated chasms between the sexes, and was likely to induce an existential crisis for anyone pondering about it for too long. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable follow-up in which some males took to the internet to inform women how foolish they were to select the bear and went on to limn the punishments they merited for that choice. This at least allowed the women who were uncertain about their decision to decide with renewed assurance.
Dramatising the Scenario
To Cook a Bear skillfully dramatises this clever little setup. The six-part drama is adapted from Swedish author the novelist’s 2018 novel with the identical title (translated two years later for English readers). It traces the struggles of a clergyman (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his household when they arrive to start a fresh religious post in Kengis, a remote village in northern Sweden, in 1852. Within a community lacking many joys, not one of the inhabitants particularly warm to his puritanical stance on alcohol and dancing, yet it is his protection of impoverished people – particularly the indigenous Sami, from among whom comes the pastor’s foster child Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his belief in societal fairness and equal rights that sets him on a collision course with the Kengis local authorities.
The Antagonists
Soon collaborating against him are the sheriff the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the fearsome mill owner the matron Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen initially dismissing a recently mangled laborer with minimal compensation while he is still babbling at the sight of his pulped hand, and anyone else who profit from a community who can be bought with some containers of liquor provided by the unsettling store owner the merchant Lindmark (the actor). However, to be fair, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes once travelling artist the artist Beronius appears in the story (Simon J Berger, delivering a performance of rare discomfiting power). If they are – like the pastor himself – only a little more than caricatures, they still serve as effective ones.
Plot Progression
With the seeds of conflict sown, it is time to get down with the storyline. The servant employed by the doctor, Hilda (the actress), duly vanishes from the woods. Indications of her flight and bear markings upon a trunk are found but she is nowhere to be seen. Gossip and fears of a man/maid-eating bear roaming the woodland circulate, but the pastor holds a different view that he and Jussi embark to verify.
An Odd Beast
This Bear Drama is a somewhat peculiar show. It conjures a fine sense of the desolation that allows distrust and prejudice and grim legends flourish from the native legend that animals can be controlled or inhabited by the souls of humans. And it doesn’t romanticise the tough existence led by the villagers, in which brutality, be it from nature or mankind, lurks constantly on the edges, waiting to erupt. But the characters seldom evolve more than ciphers – or maybe, while the conflicts amid fairness and vengeance, logic and faith, virtue and wickedness escalate, representative characters in a fable – preventing the whole thing fully coming to life.
Stylistic Shifts
Additionally, there are numerous stylistically clashing instances where the clergyman’s skill to discover clues and determine Hilda’s fate turns nearly laughable. He stands looking at broken milk pots and clumps of hair within storage sheds as a fusion of the Belgian detective the English sleuth – alongside Jussi a rather hapless assistant figure (none of whom were required to taste a blend of blood droplets and saliva from his superior to agree that indeed, it was definitely coagulated blood on the site), before announcing his latest deduction and pulling a corpse from a bog.
Opposing Goals
The village elite are bent on demonstrating that Hilda met her end by an animal, maybe to preserve the peace, perhaps to shield a fellow elite. The clergyman is bent on proving otherwise, and the proof so rapidly stacks up supporting his view that once more the drama’s plausibility and the viewer’s patience get strained. At its best, the series is reminiscent of the TV version a few years ago of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the competing attractions and fears offered by rational thought and belief. At its worst, it’s more like Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it appears to offer the response to that debated question: “Ladies, take the bear.”
To Cook a Bear is on Disney+ now.
