An intense debate recently went viral across online platforms, after someone posed the question to women: would you rather find yourself stranded in the woods alongside a male or a bear? Like all the best thought experiments, it exposed vastly opposing perspectives and experiences, illuminated chasms between the sexes, and could easily to induce an existential crisis if you thought about it for too long. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable follow-up in which men of a certain stripe took to the internet to tell women how stupid they were for choosing the bear and went on to describe the consequences they deserved for it. This at least enabled the women who had been hesitating over their choice to make it with renewed assurance.
Dramatising the Scenario
To Cook a Bear skillfully brings to life this clever little setup. This six-episode series is based on Swedish author the novelist’s 2018 book of the same name (translated two years later for an English audience). It follows the struggles of a pastor (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his family as they come to begin a fresh religious post in Kengis, an isolated village in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. In a place lacking many joys, none of the inhabitants especially appreciate his puritanical approach to drinking and revelry, yet it is his protection of impoverished people – particularly the native Sami population, from which comes the preacher’s foster child the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his conviction in societal fairness and equality that sets him on a collision course with the Kengis powers that be.
The Opposing Forces
Quickly collaborating against him include the sheriff the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the intimidating mill owner Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed early on firing a newly injured worker with a month’s pay as he remains babbling at the sight his crushed hand, and anyone else who profit from a populace who can be bought for a few bottles of liquor sold by the unsettling shopkeeper Lindmark (the actor). However, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness pales when travelling artist Beronius appears on the scene (Simon J Berger, delivering a performance of exceptional unsettling intensity). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, they still serve as potent archetypes.
Plot Progression
With the seeds of tension sown, it is time to proceed to narrative business. The servant employed by the doctor, Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), accordingly goes missing in the forest. Indications of her escape and bear markings upon a trunk are found yet she remains nowhere to be seen. Gossip and anxieties of a man/maid-eating beast prowling the woods circulate, yet the clergyman has another theory that he and Jussi set out to prove.
An Odd Beast
This Bear Drama is a slightly peculiar show. It conjures a strong impression of the desolation that allows suspicion and bias and grim legends thrive based on local folklore that bears might be dominated or inhabited by the souls of men. It avoids romanticise the tough existence experienced by the residents, where violence, whether that of nature or people, always looms on the edges, poised to explode. Yet the personas seldom evolve more than ciphers – or maybe, as the struggles amid fairness and revenge, logic and faith, good and wickedness intensify, representative characters in a fable – preventing the whole thing fully becoming immersive.
Stylistic Shifts
And then, exist numerous tonally jarring moments where the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and determine the maid’s destiny becomes almost risible. He positions himself 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 Hastings-cum-Watson (none of whom were required to taste a blend of blood spatter and the boss’s spit 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 proving that Hilda was killed by an animal, perhaps to preserve the peace, or possibly to protect one of their own. The clergyman is bent 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 evokes memories of the TV version a few years ago of the author’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the opposing attractions and terrors offered by science and religion. In its low points, it’s more like Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Nevertheless, it appears to provide the response to that debated question: “Ladies, take the bear.”
To Cook a Bear is on Disney+ now.
