An heated discussion lately went viral on social media, following a user posed a query for females: which would you prefer be lost in the woods alongside a male or with a bear? Like all the best hypothetical scenarios, it revealed vastly opposing worldviews and life encounters, highlighted chasms between the sexes, and was likely to induce a deep personal dilemma if you thought on it extensively. Additionally, there came the predictable follow-up where some males came online to inform women how stupid they were to select the bear and went on to limn the consequences they merited for that choice. This at minimum enabled those females who had been hesitating about their decision to make it with a new confidence.
Dramatising the Setup
To Cook a Bear skillfully brings to life this nifty small premise. This six-episode drama is based on Scandinavian writer the novelist’s 2018 novel with the identical title (rendered two years later for an English audience). It follows the struggles of a pastor (the lead actor) and his family when they arrive to begin a fresh religious post in Kengis, a remote village in Sweden’s north, during the mid-19th century. Within a community with few pleasures, not one of the inhabitants particularly appreciate his puritanical approach to alcohol and dancing, yet it is his defense of impoverished people – particularly the indigenous Sami, from among whom comes the preacher’s adopted son Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his belief in societal fairness and equal rights that places him on a collision course against the Kengis local authorities.
The Antagonists
Quickly collaborating opposing him are the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the fearsome factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen initially firing a newly injured laborer with a month’s pay while he is still babbling at the sight of his pulped hand, and anyone else who benefit from a populace who can be bought for a few bottles of the whisky sold by the unsettling shopkeeper the merchant Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). However, to be fair, Lindmark’s eeriness pales when travelling artist the artist Beronius appears on the scene (the performer, providing a performance of exceptional unsettling intensity). If they are – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, they still serve as potent archetypes.
Plot Progression
Once the foundations of tension sown, the moment arrives to proceed to narrative business. The maid employed by the doctor, Hilda (the actress), accordingly goes missing from the woods. Signs of her escape and animal scratches upon a trunk get discovered but she is completely absent. Gossip and anxieties of a man/maid-eating beast roaming the woodland circulate, yet the clergyman holds a different view which he and his ward embark to verify.
An Odd Beast
This Bear Drama is a slightly peculiar show. It conjures a strong impression of the bleakness that lets distrust and prejudice and grim legends thrive based on local folklore that animals can be controlled or possessed by the souls of humans. It avoids idealising the hardscrabble life led by the villagers, in which brutality, be it from nature or mankind, always looms on the edges, poised to explode. Yet the personas rarely become more than ciphers – or perhaps, as the struggles amid fairness and revenge, logic and religion, virtue and evil escalate, emblematic figures in a fable – preventing the whole thing fully becoming immersive.
Tonal Inconsistencies
Additionally, exist numerous tonally jarring moments where the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and discern Hilda’s fate becomes almost risible. He stands looking at broken milk pots and strands of fur in hay barns like a combined the Belgian detective the English sleuth – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (none of whom were required to lick a blend of blood droplets and the boss’s spit to confirm that, yes, it was definitely dried blood on the site), prior to declaring his latest deduction and pulling a corpse from a bog.
Opposing Goals
The local leaders are bent on proving that the maid met her end by a bear, maybe to preserve the peace, perhaps to protect one of their own. The clergyman is intent on proving the opposite, and the proof so rapidly stacks up in his favour that once more the show’s credibility and the viewer’s patience 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 allures and terrors offered by science and belief. At its worst, it’s more like Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it appears to provide the response to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”
The series streams on Disney+ currently.
