A intense debate lately spread widely on social media, after someone posed the question for females: would you rather find yourself stranded in a forest alongside a male or a bear? Similar to the best hypothetical scenarios, it revealed vastly opposing worldviews and experiences, illuminated divides among genders, and was likely cause a deep personal dilemma for anyone pondering on it for too long. Additionally, there came the predictable follow-up where some males came online to tell females how stupid they were for choosing the bear and went on to limn the consequences they merited for that choice. 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 brings to life this nifty small premise. This six-episode series is based from Scandinavian writer the novelist’s 2018 novel with the identical title (translated two years later for English readers). It follows the tribulations of a pastor (the lead actor) and his household as they come to begin a fresh religious post within Kengis, a remote village in northern Sweden, in 1852. Within a community lacking many joys, not one of the locals particularly warm to his puritanical stance on alcohol and revelry, yet it is his protection of impoverished people – particularly the native Sami population, from among whom hails the pastor’s adopted son the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his belief in social justice and equality that sets him on a collision course with the Kengis powers that be.
The Opposing Forces
Soon collaborating opposing him include the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the fearsome mill owner the matron Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed initially firing a recently mangled laborer with a month’s pay as he remains babbling upon seeing his crushed hand, and anyone else who benefit from a community easily swayed with some containers of the whisky sold by the creepy shopkeeper the merchant Lindmark (the actor). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness pales once itinerant painter the artist Beronius appears in the story (the performer, delivering an acting turn of rare unsettling intensity). If they are – like the pastor himself – only a little more being stereotypes, they are at least potent archetypes.
Plot Progression
With the seeds of conflict planted, it is time to get down to narrative business. The servant employed by the doctor, Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), accordingly vanishes from the woods. Signs of her escape and animal scratches upon a trunk are found yet she remains completely absent. Rumours and fears regarding a human-devouring bear prowling the woods spread, yet the clergyman has another theory that he and Jussi set out to verify.
A Strange Creation
To Cook a Bear is a somewhat peculiar show. It creates a strong impression of the desolation that lets suspicion and bias and grim legends thrive based on local folklore that animals might be dominated or possessed by the spirits of men. And it doesn’t idealising the tough existence led by the residents, where violence, whether that of the wild or people, always looms on the edges, poised to explode. Yet the personas rarely become beyond symbols – or maybe, while the conflicts amid fairness and vengeance, logic and faith, good and wickedness intensify, representative characters within a moral tale – which stops the whole thing truly coming to life.
Stylistic Shifts
And then, exist the many stylistically clashing moments where the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and discern Hilda’s fate turns nearly laughable. He stands looking at shattered containers and strands of fur within storage sheds like a combined Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (neither of whom had to lick a blend of blood droplets and saliva from his superior to confirm that, yes, it was clearly dried blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his latest deduction and extracting a corpse from a bog.
Clashing Agendas
The village elite are bent on demonstrating that Hilda was killed by an animal, maybe to preserve the calm, or possibly to shield a fellow elite. The clergyman is intent on proving the opposite, and the evidence so rapidly stacks up in his favour that once more the drama’s plausibility and audience tolerance get strained. In its finest moments, To Cook a Bear is reminiscent of the adaptation a few years ago of the author’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the competing attractions and fears presented by science and religion. At its worst, it’s more like Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Nevertheless, it does seem to provide the response to that debated question: “Ladies, take the bear.”
The series streams on Disney+ currently.
