A intense debate recently spread widely on social media, following someone asked the question for females: which would you prefer find yourself stranded in the woods alongside a male or a bear? Similar to the most engaging thought experiments, it revealed vastly opposing perspectives and life encounters, illuminated chasms between the sexes, and could easily cause a deep personal dilemma for anyone pondering about it extensively. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable follow-up in which some males took to the internet to inform women how stupid they had been for choosing the bear and went on to describe the punishments they merited for it. This at minimum enabled those females who had been hesitating over their choice to make it with a new confidence.
Dramatising the Setup
To Cook a Bear skillfully dramatises this clever small premise. This six-episode series is based from Scandinavian writer the novelist’s 2018 book with the identical title (rendered in 2020 for English readers). It traces the tribulations of a clergyman (the lead actor) and his household as they come to begin a fresh religious post within Kengis, a remote village in northern Sweden, in 1852. Within a community with few pleasures, none of the locals especially appreciate his strict stance on alcohol and dancing, yet it is his protection of the poor – especially the indigenous Sami, from among whom hails the pastor’s foster child 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 Antagonists
Soon collaborating against him are the lawman Brahe (the performer), the fearsome factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (the actress), observed initially firing a recently mangled laborer with minimal compensation while he is still gibbering at the sight of his pulped hand, and all others who profit from a community who can be bought for a few bottles of the whisky provided by the creepy store owner the merchant Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes when itinerant painter Beronius arrives in the story (Simon J Berger, providing an acting turn of rare unsettling intensity). While they remain – like the pastor himself – 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 to narrative business. The servant from the doctor’s house, the character Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), duly vanishes from the woods. Signs of her flight and animal scratches upon a trunk get discovered but she is completely absent. Rumours and anxieties regarding a human-devouring beast roaming the woods circulate, but the pastor has another theory that he and Jussi embark to verify.
An Odd Beast
To Cook a Bear is a somewhat peculiar show. It conjures a fine sense of the bleakness that allows suspicion and bias and grim legends thrive based on local folklore that animals might be dominated or inhabited by the spirits of men. It avoids romanticise the tough existence experienced by the residents, where violence, be it from the wild or people, always looms at the periphery, poised to explode. But the characters rarely become more than ciphers – or perhaps, while the conflicts between justice and vengeance, rationality and religion, virtue and wickedness escalate, emblematic figures in a fable – preventing the entire production truly becoming immersive.
Tonal Inconsistencies
Additionally, exist the many tonally jarring moments in which the clergyman’s skill to discover clues and discern Hilda’s fate becomes nearly laughable. He positions himself observing shattered containers and clumps of hair in hay barns as a fusion of Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (neither of whom had to taste a blend of blood droplets and the boss’s spit to confirm that indeed, it was definitely coagulated blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and pulling a body from a bog.
Clashing Agendas
The village elite are determined demonstrating that Hilda met her end by an animal, perhaps to preserve the calm, or possibly to shield one of their own. The pastor is intent on proving otherwise, and the evidence so rapidly stacks up supporting his view that once more the show’s credibility and audience tolerance get strained. At its best, the series evokes memories of the adaptation a few years ago of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the opposing attractions and fears presented by rational thought and belief. In its low points, it’s more like Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it appears to offer the response to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”
The series streams on Disney+ currently.