A intense discussion lately spread widely across online platforms, after a user asked a query for females: would you rather find yourself stranded in the woods alongside a male or a bear? Like all the most engaging hypothetical scenarios, it revealed wildly different perspectives and life encounters, highlighted chasms between the sexes, and was likely to induce a deep personal dilemma if you thought on it extensively. There was also the predictable follow-up in which some males took to the internet to tell females how stupid they were for choosing the animal and proceeded to limn the consequences they deserved for it. This at minimum enabled those females who had been hesitating about their decision to make it with renewed assurance.
Dramatising the Setup
To Cook a Bear effectively brings to life this nifty small premise. The six-part series is based on Scandinavian writer the novelist’s 2018 book of the same name (rendered two years later for English readers). It traces the struggles of a clergyman (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his family when they arrive to start a new ministry in Kengis, an isolated village in northern Sweden, in 1852. In a place lacking many joys, not one of the locals particularly appreciate his puritanical approach to alcohol and dancing, but it is his defense of impoverished people – particularly the native Sami population, from which comes the preacher’s foster child the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in social justice and equal rights that sets him on a collision course with the Kengis local authorities.
The Opposing Forces
Quickly in cahoots opposing him include the sheriff the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the fearsome factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed initially dismissing a newly injured laborer with a month’s pay while he is still gibbering upon seeing his crushed hand, and all others who benefit from a community who can be bought for a few bottles of the whisky sold by the unsettling store owner Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, to be fair, Lindmark’s creepiness pales once itinerant painter the artist Beronius appears in the story (the performer, delivering a performance of exceptional discomfiting power). If they are – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond than caricatures, they are at least effective ones.
Narrative Development
Once the foundations of conflict planted, the moment arrives to get down with the storyline. The maid from the doctor’s house, Hilda (the actress), accordingly vanishes in the forest. Indications of her escape and animal scratches on a tree get discovered yet she remains nowhere to be seen. Rumours and fears regarding a human-devouring bear prowling the woods spread, but the pastor holds a different view which he and his ward set out to prove.
An Odd Beast
This Bear Drama is a somewhat peculiar show. It creates a fine sense of the bleakness that allows suspicion and bias and grim legends flourish based on local folklore that animals might be dominated or possessed by the spirits of humans. It avoids idealising the tough existence experienced by the residents, where violence, whether that of the wild or people, lurks constantly on the edges, waiting to erupt. But the characters seldom evolve beyond symbols – or maybe, while the conflicts between justice and vengeance, logic and faith, good and wickedness intensify, emblematic figures in a fable – preventing the entire production fully becoming immersive.
Stylistic Shifts
And then, exist the many tonally jarring instances where the clergyman’s skill to discover clues and determine Hilda’s fate turns almost risible. He stands observing broken milk pots and strands of fur in hay barns as a fusion of the Belgian detective the English sleuth – alongside Jussi a rather hapless Hastings-cum-Watson (neither of whom were required to lick a mixture of blood droplets and the boss’s spit to confirm that, yes, it was definitely coagulated blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and extracting a corpse out of a swamp.
Opposing Goals
The village elite are bent on proving that Hilda was killed by a bear, perhaps to preserve the peace, or possibly to protect a fellow elite. The pastor is bent on establishing otherwise, and the proof so quickly accumulates supporting his view that once more the show’s credibility and the viewer’s patience get strained. At its best, the series is reminiscent of the adaptation a few years ago of the author’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the competing allures and terrors offered by rational thought and belief. In its low points, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Nevertheless, it does seem to offer the answer to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”
The series streams on Disney+ currently.
