A heated debate recently went viral on social media, following a user posed a query to women: would you rather be lost in a forest with a man or a bear? Similar to the most engaging thought experiments, it exposed vastly opposing perspectives and life encounters, highlighted chasms between the sexes, and was likely to induce a deep personal dilemma for anyone pondering about it extensively. There was also the predictable follow-up in which men of a certain stripe took to the internet to inform females how foolish they were to select the bear and proceeded to describe the consequences they deserved for that choice. This at minimum enabled those females who were uncertain about their decision to make it with a new confidence.
Dramatising the Setup
To Cook a Bear effectively brings to life this clever small premise. This six-episode drama is adapted on Swedish author the novelist’s 2018 book with the identical title (translated two years later for an English audience). It traces the tribulations of a pastor (the lead actor) and his family as they come to begin a new ministry in Kengis, an isolated settlement in northern Sweden, in 1852. In a place lacking many joys, none of the locals especially appreciate his puritanical stance on alcohol and dancing, but it is his protection 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 societal fairness and equal rights that places him in direct opposition with the Kengis local authorities.
The Opposing Forces
Soon in cahoots opposing him are the lawman Brahe (the performer), the intimidating factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (the actress), observed early on firing a newly injured worker with minimal compensation as he remains babbling upon seeing his crushed hand, and anyone else who benefit from a populace who can be bought for a few bottles of the whisky provided by the creepy store owner Lindmark (the actor). Although, to be fair, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes when travelling artist the artist Beronius appears on the scene (the performer, delivering a performance of exceptional unsettling intensity). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond 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 servant employed by the doctor, Hilda (the actress), duly goes missing in the forest. Indications of her flight and animal scratches on a tree are found but she is completely absent. Gossip and fears regarding a human-devouring beast roaming the woods spread, yet the clergyman holds a different view that he and Jussi set out to verify.
An Odd Beast
This Bear Drama is a slightly odd beast. It conjures a strong impression of the desolation that allows suspicion and prejudice and dark myths thrive based on local folklore that bears can be controlled or inhabited by the souls of humans. And it doesn’t romanticise the tough existence led by the residents, in which brutality, whether that of nature or mankind, always looms at the periphery, waiting to erupt. Yet the personas seldom evolve more than ciphers – or maybe, while the conflicts amid fairness and vengeance, logic and religion, virtue and evil escalate, representative characters in a fable – which stops the entire production fully becoming immersive.
Stylistic Shifts
Additionally, exist the many stylistically clashing instances in which the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and discern Hilda’s fate turns almost risible. He stands observing broken milk pots and clumps of hair within storage sheds as a fusion of Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (neither of whom had to taste a blend of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to agree that indeed, it was definitely coagulated blood on the site), before announcing his latest deduction and pulling a corpse out of a swamp.
Clashing Agendas
The village elite are bent on proving that the maid was killed by an animal, perhaps to preserve the calm, or possibly to shield one of their own. The pastor is intent on proving the opposite, and the evidence so quickly accumulates supporting his view that once more the drama’s plausibility and the viewer’s patience get strained. At its best, the series evokes memories of the TV version some years back of the author’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the competing allures and terrors offered by science and belief. In its low points, it resembles a bear-themed police procedural. Nevertheless, it does seem to provide the answer to that debated question: “Females, choose the animal.”
To Cook a Bear is on Disney+ currently.
