An heated debate lately went viral across online platforms, after someone asked a query for females: which would you prefer find yourself stranded in the woods alongside a male or a bear? Like all the best hypothetical scenarios, it exposed vastly opposing worldviews and experiences, illuminated chasms among genders, and could easily cause a deep personal dilemma for anyone pondering on it extensively. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable follow-up where some males took to the internet to inform females how stupid they were to select the animal and proceeded to limn the punishments they merited for it. This at least enabled the women who had been hesitating over their choice to decide with a new confidence.
Dramatising the Scenario
To Cook a Bear effectively dramatises this clever little setup. The six-part drama is adapted from Scandinavian writer the novelist’s 2018 novel of the same name (rendered in 2020 for English readers). It follows the tribulations of a pastor (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his family when they arrive to begin a fresh religious post in Kengis, a remote settlement in Sweden’s north, during the mid-19th century. Within a community lacking many joys, not one of the inhabitants particularly appreciate his strict stance on drinking and revelry, but it is his protection of the poor – especially the native Sami population, from which hails the pastor’s adopted son Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in societal fairness and equal rights that sets him in direct opposition with the Kengis local authorities.
The Opposing Forces
Quickly collaborating against him are the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating mill owner Madam Sjödahl (the actress), observed early on firing a newly injured laborer with minimal compensation while he is still gibbering at the sight of his pulped hand, and anyone else who profit from a community who can be bought with some containers of liquor provided by the unsettling store owner Lindmark (the actor). However, to be fair, Lindmark’s creepiness pales when travelling artist Beronius appears on the scene (the performer, delivering a performance of rare unsettling intensity). While they remain – like the pastor himself – just slightly beyond than caricatures, they still serve as effective ones.
Narrative Development
Once the foundations of conflict sown, it is time to get down to narrative business. The servant from the doctor’s house, the character Hilda (the actress), accordingly vanishes in the forest. Indications of her escape and bear markings upon a trunk get discovered but she is completely absent. Gossip and fears of a man/maid-eating beast roaming the woods spread, yet the clergyman holds a different view that he and Jussi set out to verify.
A Strange Creation
This Bear Drama is a slightly peculiar show. It conjures a strong impression of the desolation that lets distrust and prejudice and dark myths thrive based on local folklore that bears can be controlled or possessed by the spirits of humans. It avoids idealising the tough existence led by the villagers, in which violence, be it from the wild or mankind, always looms at the periphery, waiting to erupt. Yet the personas seldom evolve beyond symbols – or maybe, while the conflicts amid fairness and revenge, logic and faith, virtue and evil escalate, emblematic figures in a fable – preventing the whole thing fully coming to life.
Stylistic Shifts
And then, exist the many tonally jarring instances in which the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and determine Hilda’s fate becomes almost risible. He positions himself looking at broken milk pots and clumps of hair in hay barns like a combined Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (neither of whom had to taste a blend of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to confirm that indeed, it was definitely dried blood on the site), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and pulling a body out of a swamp.
Clashing Agendas
The local leaders are bent on proving that Hilda met her end by an animal, perhaps to protect the calm, or possibly to protect a fellow elite. The clergyman is bent on establishing otherwise, and the proof so rapidly accumulates supporting his view that once more the drama’s plausibility and the viewer’s patience get strained. In its finest moments, the series evokes memories of the adaptation some years back of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the opposing attractions and fears offered by science and religion. In its low points, it resembles a bear-themed police procedural. Nevertheless, it appears to offer the response to that debated question: “Ladies, take the bear.”
To Cook a Bear is on Disney+ now.
