A heated debate lately spread widely on social media, following a user asked a query for females: which would you prefer find yourself stranded in a forest with a man or with a bear? Similar to the best hypothetical scenarios, it exposed wildly different perspectives and experiences, highlighted divides among genders, and was likely cause a deep personal dilemma for anyone pondering on it extensively. There was also the almost inevitable coda 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 describe the consequences they deserved for that choice. This at minimum allowed those females who had been hesitating over their choice to decide with renewed assurance.
Dramatising the Scenario
To Cook a Bear skillfully dramatises this nifty little setup. The six-part drama is based on Swedish author the novelist’s 2018 book with the identical title (translated in 2020 for an English audience). It traces the tribulations of a pastor (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his family as they come to begin a fresh religious post within Kengis, an isolated village in northern Sweden, in 1852. In a place with few pleasures, not one of the inhabitants particularly appreciate his puritanical stance on alcohol and revelry, yet it is his protection of impoverished people – especially the indigenous Sami, from which hails the pastor’s adopted son the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his conviction in social justice and equal rights that places him on a collision course with the Kengis local authorities.
The Antagonists
Quickly collaborating opposing him include the lawman the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the intimidating factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen initially firing a newly injured worker with minimal compensation as he remains babbling at the sight his crushed hand, and all others who benefit from a populace who can be bought for a few bottles of the whisky provided by the unsettling shopkeeper the merchant Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). However, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes once travelling artist Beronius appears in the story (the performer, providing a performance of rare discomfiting power). While they remain – like the pastor himself – only a little more than caricatures, they are at least potent archetypes.
Narrative Development
Once the foundations of tension sown, it is time to proceed with the storyline. The maid from the doctor’s house, the character Hilda (the actress), accordingly vanishes in the forest. Signs of her escape and animal scratches on a tree get discovered yet she remains completely absent. Rumours and anxieties regarding a human-devouring bear prowling the woods circulate, but the pastor has another theory which he and his ward embark to prove.
An Odd Beast
This Bear Drama is a slightly odd beast. It creates a strong impression of the bleakness that lets suspicion and bias and grim legends flourish based on local folklore that bears might be dominated or possessed by the souls of men. And it doesn’t idealising the hardscrabble life experienced by the residents, in which violence, be it from nature or mankind, always looms on the edges, waiting to erupt. Yet the personas seldom evolve more than ciphers – or maybe, while the conflicts between justice and vengeance, rationality and religion, virtue and wickedness intensify, emblematic figures within a moral tale – preventing the entire production fully becoming immersive.
Tonal Inconsistencies
And then, exist numerous stylistically clashing instances where the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and discern the maid’s destiny becomes almost risible. He stands observing broken milk pots and clumps of hair within storage sheds as a fusion of Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (neither of whom had to taste a blend of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to confirm that, yes, it was clearly coagulated blood at the crime scene), before announcing his latest deduction and extracting a corpse out of a swamp.
Clashing Agendas
The local leaders are bent on demonstrating that Hilda met her end by a bear, maybe to protect the calm, perhaps to protect a fellow elite. The pastor is intent on proving the opposite, and the evidence so rapidly accumulates in his favour that once more the show’s credibility and the viewer’s patience are tested. At its best, the series evokes memories of the TV version a few years ago of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the opposing attractions and fears offered by rational thought and belief. At its worst, it resembles a bear-themed police procedural. Still, it appears to offer the response to the earlier query: “Females, choose the animal.”
The series is on Disney+ currently.
