An heated discussion lately spread widely on social media, following someone asked a query for females: would you rather find yourself stranded in a forest alongside a male or a bear? Similar to the best hypothetical scenarios, it revealed vastly opposing perspectives and life encounters, illuminated chasms between the sexes, and was likely to induce an existential crisis for anyone pondering about it extensively. Additionally, there came the predictable follow-up in which some males came online to inform women how stupid they had been to select the animal and went on to describe the consequences they merited for that choice. This at least allowed the women who had been hesitating over their choice to decide with renewed assurance.
Portraying the Setup
To Cook a Bear effectively brings to life this clever small premise. This six-episode drama is based from Scandinavian writer the novelist’s 2018 book of the same name (rendered two years later for an English audience). It follows the tribulations of a pastor (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his household as they come to begin a new ministry in Kengis, an isolated village in Sweden’s north, during the mid-19th century. In a place lacking many joys, not one of the locals particularly warm to his puritanical stance on alcohol and revelry, yet it is his protection of the poor – especially the native Sami population, from among whom comes the preacher’s adopted son the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his conviction in societal fairness and equality that places him on a collision course with the Kengis local authorities.
The Opposing Forces
Soon in cahoots against him are the lawman Brahe (the performer), the fearsome factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen early on dismissing a recently mangled worker with a month’s pay as he remains babbling upon seeing his crushed hand, and all others who profit from a community who can be bought with some containers of the whisky sold by the creepy store owner Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). However, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness pales once itinerant painter the artist Beronius arrives in the story (the performer, providing an acting turn of rare unsettling intensity). If they are – like the pastor himself – only a little more being stereotypes, they are at least potent archetypes.
Plot Progression
With the seeds of tension planted, the moment arrives to get down with the storyline. The servant from the doctor’s house, Hilda (the actress), duly goes missing from the woods. Indications of her flight and animal scratches on a tree get discovered but she is completely absent. Rumours and fears regarding a human-devouring beast roaming the woodland circulate, but the pastor has another theory which he and his ward embark to prove.
A Strange Creation
To Cook a Bear is a somewhat odd beast. It creates a fine sense of the desolation that lets suspicion and bias and dark myths flourish based on local folklore that bears might be dominated or possessed by the souls of men. It avoids idealising the tough existence led by the residents, where brutality, be it from the wild or people, lurks constantly at the periphery, poised to explode. Yet the personas rarely become beyond symbols – or perhaps, while the conflicts between justice and revenge, rationality and religion, good and wickedness escalate, representative characters in a fable – preventing the whole thing truly coming to life.
Stylistic Shifts
Additionally, there are the many tonally jarring instances in which the pastor’s ability to discover clues and discern the maid’s destiny turns nearly laughable. He stands observing broken milk pots and strands of fur within storage sheds like a combined the Belgian detective and Sherlock Holmes – alongside Jussi a rather hapless assistant figure (neither of whom had to taste a blend of blood droplets and the boss’s spit to agree that indeed, it was definitely dried blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and extracting a body from a bog.
Clashing Agendas
The village elite are determined demonstrating that the maid met her end by a bear, perhaps to protect the peace, or possibly to shield one of their own. The pastor is intent on establishing the opposite, and the evidence so quickly accumulates in his favour that again the show’s credibility and the viewer’s patience get strained. At its best, To Cook a Bear evokes memories of the adaptation some years back of the author’s The Essex Serpent, through its portrayal of the opposing allures and fears offered by rational thought and religion. At its worst, it resembles a bear-themed police procedural. Nevertheless, it appears to offer the response to the earlier query: “Females, choose the animal.”
The series streams on Disney+ now.
