An intense discussion lately went viral on social media, following someone posed a query for females: which would you prefer be lost in a forest with a man or a bear? Similar to the best thought experiments, it revealed wildly different worldviews and life encounters, highlighted chasms between the sexes, and could easily cause a deep personal dilemma if you thought about it for too long. Additionally, there came the predictable follow-up where some males came online to tell females how stupid they had been to select the bear and proceeded to limn the consequences they deserved for that choice. This at minimum enabled the women who were uncertain about their decision to make it with a new confidence.
Portraying the Setup
To Cook a Bear effectively dramatises this nifty little setup. This six-episode series is adapted from Scandinavian writer the novelist’s 2018 book with the identical title (rendered in 2020 for English readers). It follows the struggles of a pastor (the lead actor) and his household as they come to start a new ministry within Kengis, an isolated settlement in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. In a place lacking many joys, none of the inhabitants especially appreciate his strict stance on alcohol and dancing, but it is his defense of the poor – particularly the native Sami population, from among whom comes the preacher’s foster child Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his belief in social justice and equality that sets him in direct opposition against the Kengis powers that be.
The Antagonists
Quickly collaborating against him include the lawman the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the fearsome factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen early on dismissing a newly injured laborer with minimal compensation as he remains gibbering at the sight of his pulped hand, and all others who profit from a populace easily swayed with some containers of the whisky sold by the creepy shopkeeper the merchant Lindmark (the actor). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness pales once travelling artist Beronius arrives on the scene (Simon J Berger, delivering a performance of rare discomfiting power). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – only a little more than caricatures, they are at least potent archetypes.
Plot Progression
With the seeds of tension planted, it is time to proceed with the storyline. The servant from the doctor’s house, Hilda (the actress), accordingly vanishes from the woods. Signs of her escape and animal scratches upon a trunk get discovered yet she remains nowhere to be seen. Gossip and fears regarding a human-devouring beast prowling the woods spread, but the pastor has another theory that he and Jussi set out to prove.
A Strange Creation
This Bear Drama is a slightly odd beast. It conjures a fine sense of the bleakness that lets distrust and prejudice and dark myths flourish based on local folklore that bears might be dominated or possessed by the souls of men. And it doesn’t romanticise the hardscrabble life led by the villagers, where violence, whether that of the wild or mankind, always looms on the edges, waiting to erupt. Yet the personas seldom evolve more than ciphers – or perhaps, while the conflicts amid fairness and revenge, rationality and faith, virtue and evil intensify, emblematic figures in a fable – which stops the entire production truly becoming immersive.
Tonal Inconsistencies
Additionally, exist numerous tonally jarring moments where the clergyman’s skill to discover clues and determine Hilda’s fate turns nearly laughable. He positions himself observing shattered containers and strands of fur in hay barns like a combined Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (none of whom had to taste a mixture of blood spatter and the boss’s spit to confirm that, yes, it was definitely coagulated blood on the site), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and extracting a body out of a swamp.
Opposing Goals
The local leaders are determined proving that the maid was killed by an animal, maybe to preserve the calm, perhaps to protect a fellow elite. The clergyman is intent on proving the opposite, and the proof so rapidly accumulates supporting his view that once more the drama’s plausibility and the viewer’s patience are tested. At its best, the series evokes memories of the adaptation a few years ago of the author’s The Essex Serpent, through its portrayal of the competing allures and terrors presented by rational thought and religion. At its worst, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it does seem to provide the response to the earlier query: “Females, choose the animal.”
The series is on Disney+ now.
