An heated debate lately spread widely on social media, following someone asked a query to women: which would you prefer find yourself stranded in a forest alongside a male or with a bear? Like all the best hypothetical scenarios, it exposed wildly different worldviews and experiences, illuminated divides among genders, and was likely to induce an existential crisis for anyone pondering on it for too long. Additionally, there came the predictable follow-up in which men of a certain stripe took to the internet to tell females how stupid they had been to select the bear and went on to describe the punishments they deserved for it. This at least allowed those females who had been hesitating about their decision to decide with a new confidence.
Dramatising the Scenario
To Cook a Bear skillfully brings to life this clever little setup. The six-part series is based from Swedish author the novelist’s 2018 book with the identical title (translated in 2020 for English readers). It follows the struggles of a pastor (the lead actor) and his household when they arrive to begin a new ministry within Kengis, a remote settlement in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. Within a community lacking many joys, not one of the locals particularly appreciate his strict approach to alcohol and dancing, yet it is his defense of the poor – especially the indigenous Sami, from among whom comes the preacher’s adopted son the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his conviction in social justice and equality that sets him in direct opposition with the Kengis powers that be.
The Opposing Forces
Quickly collaborating against him include the lawman Brahe (the performer), the intimidating factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed initially dismissing a recently mangled laborer with minimal compensation while he is still babbling upon seeing of his pulped hand, and all others who profit from a community easily swayed for a few bottles of liquor provided by the creepy shopkeeper Lindmark (the actor). Although, to be fair, Lindmark’s creepiness pales when itinerant painter Beronius appears on the scene (Simon J Berger, providing a performance of exceptional discomfiting power). While they remain – like the pastor himself – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, they are at least potent archetypes.
Plot Progression
Once the foundations of conflict sown, the moment arrives to get down with the storyline. The servant from the doctor’s house, Hilda (the actress), duly goes missing from the woods. Signs of her flight and animal scratches upon a trunk are found yet she remains completely absent. Rumours and fears of a man/maid-eating beast roaming the woods spread, yet the clergyman has another theory which he and his ward embark to prove.
A Strange Creation
To Cook a Bear is a somewhat peculiar show. It creates a strong impression of the desolation that allows suspicion and bias and dark myths thrive from the native legend that bears might be dominated or inhabited by the spirits of men. And it doesn’t idealising the hardscrabble life led by the residents, where violence, be it from the wild or mankind, always looms on the edges, waiting to erupt. But the characters rarely become beyond symbols – or perhaps, as the struggles amid fairness and vengeance, logic and faith, good and wickedness intensify, representative characters in a fable – preventing the entire production truly becoming immersive.
Stylistic Shifts
And then, exist the many tonally jarring instances where the pastor’s ability to discover clues and discern Hilda’s fate becomes nearly laughable. He positions himself observing broken milk pots and strands of fur in hay barns as a fusion of the Belgian detective the English sleuth – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (neither of whom were required to taste a mixture of blood droplets and the boss’s spit to agree that, yes, it was clearly dried blood at the crime scene), before announcing his latest deduction and pulling a body from a bog.
Clashing Agendas
The local leaders are bent on demonstrating that the maid met her end by an animal, perhaps to protect the calm, perhaps to shield a fellow elite. The pastor is bent on proving the opposite, and the evidence so quickly accumulates in his favour that again the drama’s plausibility and audience tolerance get strained. In its finest moments, To Cook a Bear evokes memories of the adaptation some years back of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the opposing allures and terrors offered by rational thought and belief. At its worst, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Nevertheless, it appears to offer the answer to the earlier query: “Females, choose the animal.”
To Cook a Bear is on Disney+ currently.
