An intense debate lately went viral on social media, after someone posed the question to women: would you rather find yourself stranded in the woods alongside a male or a bear? Similar to the most engaging hypothetical scenarios, it revealed wildly different perspectives and life encounters, highlighted divides among genders, and could easily to induce an existential crisis if you thought about it for too long. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable coda in which men of a certain stripe took to the internet to inform women how stupid they had been to select the animal and proceeded to describe the consequences they merited for it. 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 dramatises this nifty small premise. The six-part drama is adapted on Swedish author the novelist’s 2018 novel with the identical title (rendered two years later for an English audience). It follows the tribulations of a clergyman (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his household as they come to start a new ministry in Kengis, an isolated village in Sweden’s north, in 1852. In a place lacking many joys, none of the inhabitants especially appreciate his strict approach to drinking and dancing, but it is his protection of impoverished people – particularly the indigenous Sami, from among whom hails the preacher’s foster child the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his belief in social justice and equal rights that places him in direct opposition against the Kengis powers that be.
The Antagonists
Quickly collaborating opposing him include the lawman Brahe (the performer), the fearsome mill owner Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed early on firing a newly injured worker with minimal compensation while he is still babbling at the sight of his pulped hand, and anyone else who profit from a community easily swayed for a few bottles of liquor sold by the creepy store owner the merchant Lindmark (the actor). Although, to be fair, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes once travelling artist the artist Beronius appears in the story (the performer, providing an acting turn of exceptional discomfiting power). If they are – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, they are at least effective ones.
Narrative Development
With the seeds of conflict planted, it is time to get down to narrative business. The servant from the doctor’s house, Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), duly vanishes in the forest. Signs of her flight and animal scratches upon a trunk are found but she is completely absent. Rumours and anxieties regarding a human-devouring bear prowling the woods spread, but the pastor has another theory that he and Jussi set out to prove.
An Odd Beast
This Bear Drama is a slightly odd beast. It creates a strong impression of the desolation that allows suspicion and prejudice and dark myths flourish based on local folklore that bears can be controlled or inhabited by the spirits of men. And it doesn’t romanticise the tough existence led by the residents, in which brutality, whether that of the wild or people, always looms at the periphery, poised to explode. But the characters seldom evolve beyond symbols – or perhaps, while the conflicts amid fairness and revenge, rationality and faith, good and wickedness escalate, emblematic figures in a fable – which stops the whole thing fully coming to life.
Stylistic Shifts
And then, exist numerous tonally jarring moments in which the pastor’s ability to discover clues and determine the maid’s destiny becomes nearly laughable. 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 assistant figure (none of whom were required to taste a mixture of blood droplets and saliva from his superior to agree that indeed, it was definitely coagulated blood on the site), prior to declaring his latest deduction and pulling a body out of a swamp.
Clashing Agendas
The village elite are determined demonstrating that Hilda met her end by a bear, perhaps to preserve the peace, perhaps to protect one of their own. The clergyman is intent on proving the opposite, and the evidence so quickly stacks up in his favour that once more the drama’s plausibility and audience tolerance are tested. In its finest moments, the series is reminiscent of the TV version some years back of Sarah Perry’s The Essex Serpent, through its portrayal of the opposing allures and fears offered by science and belief. In its low points, it’s more like Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it does seem to offer the answer to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”
To Cook a Bear is on Disney+ currently.
