A heated debate lately went viral across online platforms, following a user posed the question to women: would you rather be lost in a forest with a man or a bear? Similar to the most engaging hypothetical scenarios, it exposed wildly different perspectives and experiences, highlighted chasms between the sexes, and could easily cause a deep personal dilemma if you thought about it extensively. Additionally, there came the predictable coda where some males took to the internet to tell females how stupid they were for choosing the animal and proceeded to limn the punishments they merited for that choice. This at minimum enabled the women who had been hesitating about their decision to make it with renewed assurance.
Dramatising the Scenario
To Cook a Bear skillfully brings to life this clever little setup. This six-episode series is based on Scandinavian writer the novelist’s 2018 novel with the identical title (rendered two years later for an English audience). It traces the struggles of a clergyman (the lead actor) and his family when they arrive to begin a new ministry in Kengis, an isolated village in Sweden’s north, in 1852. In a place lacking many joys, not one of the inhabitants especially warm to his strict stance on drinking and revelry, but it is his protection of impoverished people – especially the indigenous Sami, from among whom hails the preacher’s foster child Jussi (the young actor) – and his conviction in social justice and equality that sets him on a collision course with the Kengis local authorities.
The Antagonists
Quickly in cahoots opposing him are the sheriff the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating mill owner the matron Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed early on firing a recently mangled worker with a month’s pay as he remains gibbering upon seeing of his pulped hand, and all others who benefit from a community who can be bought with some containers of liquor sold by the unsettling store owner the merchant Lindmark (the actor). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness pales once itinerant painter the artist Beronius appears on the scene (Simon J Berger, providing an acting turn of rare unsettling intensity). While they remain – like the pastor himself – only a little more being stereotypes, they are at least effective ones.
Narrative Development
With the seeds of conflict planted, it is time to proceed with the storyline. The maid employed by the doctor, Hilda (the actress), accordingly goes missing from the woods. Signs of her escape and animal scratches upon a trunk are found yet she remains nowhere to be seen. Gossip and fears of a man/maid-eating bear prowling the woodland circulate, yet the clergyman has another theory that he and Jussi embark to verify.
An Odd Beast
This Bear Drama is a slightly odd beast. It creates a fine sense of the bleakness that allows suspicion and prejudice and dark myths flourish from the native legend that animals might be dominated or inhabited by the souls of men. And it doesn’t idealising the tough existence led by the villagers, in which violence, be it from nature or mankind, always looms on the edges, poised to explode. Yet the personas seldom evolve more than ciphers – or perhaps, while the conflicts amid fairness and revenge, logic and religion, good and evil intensify, representative characters within a moral tale – preventing the whole thing truly coming to life.
Tonal Inconsistencies
And then, exist numerous tonally jarring instances where the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and determine Hilda’s fate turns almost risible. He stands observing broken milk pots and clumps of hair in hay barns like a combined the Belgian detective the English sleuth – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (none of whom had to lick a mixture of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to confirm that, yes, it was definitely coagulated blood on the site), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and pulling a corpse out of a swamp.
Clashing Agendas
The local leaders are determined demonstrating that the maid met her end by a bear, perhaps to preserve the calm, or possibly to shield one of their own. The clergyman is bent on establishing otherwise, and the proof so rapidly stacks up in his favour that once more the drama’s plausibility and the viewer’s patience are tested. In its finest moments, the series is reminiscent of the adaptation a few years ago of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the opposing attractions and terrors offered by science and religion. At its worst, it’s more like a bear-themed police procedural. Nevertheless, it does seem to provide the answer to the earlier query: “Females, choose the animal.”
The series is on Disney+ now.
