A intense discussion lately spread widely on social media, after someone posed a query for females: which would you prefer find yourself stranded in a forest alongside a male or with a bear? Like all the most engaging hypothetical scenarios, it revealed wildly different perspectives and experiences, highlighted divides among genders, and was likely cause a deep personal dilemma if you thought on it extensively. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable coda in which some males came online to tell females how foolish they were for choosing the animal and went on to describe the consequences they deserved for it. This at minimum allowed the women who had been hesitating over their choice to make it with renewed assurance.
Portraying the Scenario
To Cook a Bear skillfully brings to life this clever little setup. The six-part drama is based from Scandinavian writer the novelist’s 2018 book with the identical title (rendered two years later for an English audience). It traces the tribulations of a pastor (the lead actor) and his family when they arrive to begin a new ministry within Kengis, an isolated village in Sweden’s north, during the mid-19th century. Within a community with few pleasures, none of the locals particularly warm to his strict stance on drinking and revelry, yet it is his defense of the poor – especially the indigenous Sami, from among whom hails the pastor’s foster child Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in societal fairness and equality that sets him on a collision course with the Kengis local authorities.
The Antagonists
Soon in cahoots opposing him include the lawman Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the fearsome factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen initially firing a recently mangled worker with a month’s pay as he remains gibbering at the sight his crushed hand, and all others who benefit from a populace easily swayed for a few bottles of the whisky provided by the unsettling shopkeeper Lindmark (the actor). However, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness pales when travelling artist the artist Beronius appears on the scene (Simon J Berger, delivering a performance of rare unsettling intensity). If they are – like the pastor himself – only a little more than caricatures, they still serve as effective ones.
Narrative Development
With the seeds of tension sown, it is time to proceed to narrative business. The servant from the doctor’s house, Hilda (the actress), accordingly vanishes in the forest. Indications of her flight and bear markings on a tree are found but she is completely absent. Gossip and fears of a man/maid-eating beast roaming the woods circulate, yet the clergyman holds a different view which he and his ward embark to verify.
An Odd Beast
To Cook a Bear is a slightly odd beast. It conjures a strong impression of the desolation that allows suspicion and prejudice and dark myths thrive from the native legend that bears can be controlled or inhabited by the souls of men. It avoids romanticise the hardscrabble life led by the villagers, where violence, be it from the wild or mankind, lurks constantly at the periphery, poised to explode. But the characters seldom evolve beyond symbols – or maybe, as the struggles amid fairness and vengeance, logic and faith, good and wickedness escalate, emblematic figures in a fable – which stops the whole thing fully coming to life.
Stylistic Shifts
And then, there are the many tonally jarring moments in which the pastor’s ability to discover clues and discern the maid’s destiny turns almost risible. He stands observing broken milk pots and clumps of hair within storage sheds as a fusion of Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (neither of whom had to lick a blend of blood droplets and the boss’s spit to confirm that indeed, it was definitely dried blood on the site), before announcing his latest deduction and pulling a body from a bog.
Clashing Agendas
The village elite are bent on demonstrating that Hilda met her end by a bear, maybe to preserve the calm, perhaps to shield a fellow elite. The pastor is bent on proving the opposite, and the evidence so rapidly accumulates in his favour that again the drama’s plausibility and audience tolerance are tested. In its finest moments, the series evokes memories of the TV version some years back of the author’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the opposing attractions and fears offered by science and religion. In its low points, it’s more like a bear-themed police procedural. Still, it appears to provide the response to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”
To Cook a Bear is on Disney+ now.
