A intense debate lately spread widely on social media, after a user posed a query for females: which would you prefer find yourself stranded in the woods with a man or with a bear? Like all the best hypothetical scenarios, it revealed vastly opposing worldviews and life encounters, highlighted chasms between the sexes, and could easily to induce an existential crisis if you thought about it extensively. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable follow-up where some males came online to inform women how stupid they had been for choosing the bear and went on to describe the consequences they deserved for it. This at minimum enabled the women who had been hesitating about their decision to decide with a new confidence.
Dramatising the Scenario
To Cook a Bear skillfully dramatises this nifty little setup. This six-episode series is adapted from Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s 2018 novel of the same name (rendered in 2020 for English readers). It follows the struggles of a clergyman (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his family when they arrive to begin a new ministry within Kengis, an isolated village in northern Sweden, in 1852. Within a community lacking many joys, none of the locals particularly appreciate his strict approach to drinking and dancing, yet it is his protection of impoverished people – especially the indigenous Sami, from among whom hails the pastor’s adopted son the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in social justice and equality that sets him in direct opposition with the Kengis local authorities.
The Antagonists
Soon collaborating against him are the lawman the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the fearsome mill owner the matron Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen initially firing a recently mangled laborer with minimal compensation as he remains gibbering upon seeing his crushed hand, and anyone else who profit from a populace who can be bought for a few bottles of the whisky sold by the unsettling shopkeeper Lindmark (the actor). Although, to be fair, Lindmark’s eeriness pales when itinerant painter the artist Beronius arrives on the scene (the performer, providing an acting turn of rare discomfiting power). If they are – like the pastor himself – just slightly beyond than caricatures, they still serve as effective ones.
Plot Progression
Once the foundations of tension sown, it is time to proceed to narrative business. The maid employed by the doctor, Hilda (the actress), duly vanishes from the woods. Indications of her flight and animal scratches on a tree are found but she is completely absent. Gossip and fears of a man/maid-eating beast prowling the woodland circulate, but the pastor holds a different view that he and Jussi set out to prove.
An Odd Beast
To Cook a Bear is a slightly peculiar show. It conjures a strong impression of the bleakness that lets distrust and bias and dark myths thrive from the native legend that bears might be dominated or inhabited by the souls of humans. It avoids idealising the hardscrabble life experienced by the residents, in which brutality, whether that of the wild or mankind, lurks constantly on the edges, poised to explode. Yet the personas seldom evolve beyond symbols – or maybe, while the conflicts between justice and revenge, logic and religion, virtue and wickedness intensify, emblematic figures within a moral tale – which stops the whole thing fully becoming immersive.
Stylistic Shifts
Additionally, exist numerous tonally jarring moments where the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and determine Hilda’s fate becomes nearly laughable. He stands observing broken milk pots and clumps of hair within storage sheds like a combined the Belgian detective and Sherlock Holmes – with Jussi a rather hapless Hastings-cum-Watson (neither of whom had to lick a blend of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to agree that, yes, it was clearly coagulated blood on the site), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and extracting a corpse from a bog.
Opposing Goals
The village elite are determined demonstrating that Hilda met her end by a bear, maybe to preserve the peace, perhaps to shield a fellow elite. The clergyman is bent on establishing the opposite, and the evidence so quickly stacks up in his favour that again the drama’s plausibility and the viewer’s patience are tested. At its best, To Cook a Bear is reminiscent of the adaptation some years back of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the opposing attractions and terrors presented by rational thought and religion. In its low points, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it appears to offer the answer to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”
To Cook a Bear is on Disney+ currently.
