A intense debate recently spread widely across online platforms, following someone asked the question to women: which would you prefer be lost in a forest alongside a male or a bear? Like all the best thought experiments, it exposed wildly different worldviews and experiences, highlighted chasms among genders, and was likely to induce a deep personal dilemma if you thought on it for too long. There was also the predictable follow-up in which men of a certain stripe took to the internet to inform females how foolish they had been for choosing the bear and proceeded to describe the consequences they deserved for it. This at least enabled 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 small premise. This six-episode series is adapted from Scandinavian writer the novelist’s 2018 book with the identical title (rendered in 2020 for an English audience). It follows the struggles of a pastor (the lead actor) and his household as they come to start a fresh religious post within Kengis, an isolated settlement in Sweden’s north, in 1852. Within a community with few pleasures, not one of the locals particularly warm to his strict stance on alcohol and revelry, but it is his protection of impoverished people – particularly the indigenous Sami, from among whom comes the preacher’s adopted son Jussi (the young actor) – and his conviction in societal fairness and equality that sets him in direct opposition against the Kengis powers that be.
The Antagonists
Soon in cahoots opposing him are the lawman Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen initially firing a newly injured laborer with minimal compensation as he remains gibbering at the sight his crushed hand, and anyone else who benefit from a community easily swayed with some containers of the whisky sold by the creepy store owner Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, to be fair, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes when travelling artist Beronius appears on the scene (Simon J Berger, providing a performance of rare unsettling intensity). If they are – similar to the clergyman – only a little more than caricatures, they are at least effective ones.
Plot Progression
With the seeds of conflict planted, the moment arrives to proceed with the storyline. The maid from the doctor’s house, Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), duly goes missing in the forest. Signs of her escape and animal scratches on a tree get discovered but she is nowhere to be seen. Rumours and anxieties regarding a human-devouring beast roaming the woods spread, yet the clergyman has another theory that he and Jussi set out to verify.
An Odd Beast
This Bear Drama is a somewhat odd beast. It conjures a fine sense of the desolation that allows suspicion and bias and dark myths thrive based on local folklore that bears might be dominated or inhabited by the spirits of humans. And it doesn’t romanticise the tough existence led by the villagers, in which violence, whether that of the wild or people, lurks constantly on the edges, poised to explode. But the characters rarely become beyond symbols – or maybe, while the conflicts amid fairness and vengeance, logic and religion, good and wickedness escalate, representative characters in a fable – which stops the whole thing truly becoming immersive.
Stylistic Shifts
And then, exist the many stylistically clashing moments in which the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and determine Hilda’s fate becomes nearly laughable. He stands observing broken milk pots and strands of fur within storage sheds as a fusion of the Belgian detective the English sleuth – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (none of whom had to taste a blend of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to confirm that, yes, it was clearly coagulated blood on the site), prior to declaring his latest deduction and extracting a body from a bog.
Opposing Goals
The local leaders are determined demonstrating that the maid was killed by an animal, maybe to preserve the peace, or possibly to protect a fellow elite. The clergyman is intent on proving the opposite, and the proof so rapidly accumulates supporting his view that once more the drama’s plausibility and audience tolerance are tested. In its finest moments, the series evokes memories of the adaptation a few years ago of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the competing attractions and terrors presented by science and religion. In its low points, it resembles a bear-themed police procedural. Nevertheless, it does seem to provide the response to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”
To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ now.
