An heated discussion lately spread widely across online platforms, after a user asked the question for females: which would you prefer find yourself stranded in a forest with a man or with a bear? Like all the best hypothetical scenarios, it exposed wildly different worldviews and experiences, illuminated divides between the sexes, and could easily to induce an existential crisis for anyone pondering about it extensively. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable follow-up in which men of a certain stripe took to the internet to inform women how foolish they were for choosing the bear and proceeded to limn the consequences they deserved for it. This at least enabled those females who were uncertain over their choice to make it with renewed assurance.
Portraying the Scenario
To Cook a Bear effectively brings to life this nifty small premise. The six-part drama is based on Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s 2018 novel with the identical title (translated two years later for English readers). It traces the tribulations of a pastor (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his family when they arrive to begin a new ministry within Kengis, an isolated village in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. In a place with few pleasures, not one of the inhabitants especially warm to his strict stance on alcohol and dancing, but it is his defense of impoverished people – particularly the indigenous Sami, from among whom hails the preacher’s foster child the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his belief in societal fairness and equality that places him in direct opposition against the Kengis local authorities.
The Antagonists
Soon in cahoots opposing him are the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the fearsome mill owner the matron Sjödahl (the actress), observed initially dismissing a recently mangled worker with a month’s pay as he remains babbling upon seeing of his pulped hand, and all others who benefit from a populace who can be bought for a few bottles of the whisky sold by the unsettling shopkeeper Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness pales once travelling artist the artist Beronius appears in the story (Simon J Berger, delivering an acting turn of exceptional discomfiting power). While they remain – like the pastor himself – just slightly beyond than caricatures, they are at least effective ones.
Narrative Development
With the seeds of conflict sown, it is time to get down with the storyline. The maid employed by the doctor, the character Hilda (the actress), duly goes missing in the forest. Signs of her flight and bear markings upon a trunk are found yet she remains nowhere to be seen. Rumours and fears of a man/maid-eating beast roaming the woodland spread, but the pastor has another theory that he and Jussi embark to verify.
An Odd Beast
This Bear Drama is a somewhat odd beast. It conjures a strong impression of the bleakness that lets suspicion and prejudice and dark myths thrive based on local folklore that animals can be controlled or possessed by the spirits of men. And it doesn’t idealising the hardscrabble life experienced by the villagers, in which violence, whether that of nature or people, always looms on the edges, waiting to erupt. Yet the personas rarely become beyond symbols – or perhaps, as the struggles between justice and vengeance, logic and religion, virtue and evil escalate, representative characters within a moral tale – preventing the entire production fully coming to life.
Tonal Inconsistencies
And then, exist numerous stylistically clashing instances where the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and discern the maid’s destiny turns almost risible. He positions himself looking at broken milk pots and clumps of hair in hay barns like a combined Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (neither of whom had to lick a blend of blood droplets and saliva from his superior to agree that indeed, it was definitely dried blood on the site), before announcing his newest conclusion and extracting a body out of a swamp.
Clashing Agendas
The local leaders are bent on proving that Hilda was killed by a bear, maybe to protect the peace, or possibly to shield a fellow elite. The pastor is intent on establishing the opposite, and the proof so rapidly stacks up supporting his view that again the show’s credibility and audience tolerance are tested. At its best, To Cook a Bear is reminiscent of the adaptation some years back of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the competing attractions and fears offered by science and belief. At its worst, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it appears to provide the response to the earlier query: “Females, choose the animal.”
The series streams on Disney+ now.
