An heated debate recently went viral on social media, after a user asked the question to women: which would you prefer find yourself stranded in the woods with a man or a bear? Similar to the best thought experiments, it exposed vastly opposing worldviews and life encounters, illuminated divides among genders, and could easily to induce an existential crisis if you thought on it extensively. There was also the almost inevitable coda where some males took to the internet to inform women how stupid they had been to select the animal and went on to describe the punishments they merited for it. This at least allowed those females who were uncertain about their decision to decide with a new confidence.
Dramatising the Setup
To Cook a Bear skillfully brings to life this clever small premise. This six-episode series is based from Scandinavian writer the novelist’s 2018 book of the same name (rendered in 2020 for an English audience). It traces the struggles of a clergyman (the lead actor) and his family when they arrive to begin a fresh religious post within Kengis, an isolated settlement in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. In a place with few pleasures, none of the inhabitants particularly appreciate his strict stance on alcohol and revelry, yet it is his protection of the poor – particularly the native Sami population, from which hails the pastor’s adopted son the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his conviction in societal fairness and equality that sets him in direct opposition against the Kengis powers that be.
The Opposing Forces
Quickly in cahoots against him include the lawman Brahe (the performer), the fearsome factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (the actress), seen early on dismissing a recently mangled laborer with a month’s pay as he remains babbling at the sight his crushed hand, and all others who benefit from a community easily swayed for a few bottles of the whisky provided by the creepy store owner the merchant Lindmark (the actor). However, to be fair, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes once travelling artist Beronius arrives on the scene (the performer, providing an acting turn of rare discomfiting power). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – only a little more being stereotypes, they still serve as effective ones.
Plot Progression
With the seeds of conflict sown, it is time to get down to narrative business. The servant employed by the doctor, the character Hilda (the actress), accordingly vanishes from the woods. Indications of her escape and bear markings on a tree are found but she is nowhere to be seen. Gossip and anxieties of a man/maid-eating bear roaming the woodland circulate, yet the clergyman holds a different view that he and Jussi embark to verify.
An Odd Beast
This Bear Drama is a somewhat peculiar show. It conjures a fine sense of the bleakness that lets distrust and prejudice and grim legends thrive based on local folklore that bears can be controlled or possessed by the spirits of men. And it doesn’t idealising the hardscrabble life led by the residents, in which violence, be it from nature or people, lurks constantly at the periphery, waiting to erupt. Yet the personas rarely become beyond symbols – or maybe, while the conflicts amid fairness and revenge, logic and faith, virtue 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 instances where the pastor’s ability to discover clues and discern Hilda’s fate becomes almost risible. He stands observing broken milk pots and clumps of hair within storage sheds as a fusion of the Belgian detective the English sleuth – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (none of whom were required to taste a blend of blood spatter and the boss’s spit to confirm that, yes, it was clearly dried blood on the site), before announcing his latest deduction and pulling a body out of a swamp.
Clashing Agendas
The village elite are determined demonstrating that the maid was killed by a bear, maybe to protect the peace, perhaps to shield a fellow elite. The clergyman is bent on establishing the opposite, and the evidence so rapidly accumulates in his favour that again the show’s credibility and the viewer’s patience are tested. At its best, To Cook a Bear evokes memories of the TV version some years back of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the opposing allures and fears presented by rational thought and belief. At its worst, it’s more like a bear-themed police procedural. Nevertheless, it does seem to offer the response to that debated question: “Females, choose the animal.”
To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ now.