An heated discussion recently went viral across online platforms, following someone asked a query for females: would you rather find yourself stranded in the woods with a man or a bear? Similar to the most engaging thought experiments, it revealed vastly opposing perspectives and life encounters, highlighted divides among genders, and was likely to induce an existential crisis if you thought about it extensively. There was also the almost inevitable coda in which men of a certain stripe came online to inform females how stupid they had been to select the bear and proceeded to describe the punishments they merited for it. This at minimum allowed those females who had been hesitating about their decision to make it with renewed assurance.
Portraying the Scenario
To Cook a Bear skillfully dramatises this nifty small premise. This six-episode drama is based from Scandinavian writer Mikael Niemi’s 2018 novel with the identical title (translated two years later for English readers). It traces the struggles of a pastor (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his family when they arrive to start a fresh religious post in Kengis, a remote settlement in northern Sweden, in 1852. Within a community with few pleasures, none of the inhabitants especially appreciate his strict stance on alcohol and dancing, yet it is his defense of the poor – particularly the native Sami population, from which comes the preacher’s adopted son the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his conviction in societal fairness and equality that places him on a collision course with the Kengis local authorities.
The Opposing Forces
Quickly collaborating opposing him include the lawman the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the fearsome factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (the actress), seen early on firing a recently mangled laborer with a month’s pay as he remains babbling at the sight his crushed hand, and all others who profit from a populace easily swayed for a few bottles of the whisky sold by the unsettling store owner the merchant Lindmark (the actor). Although, to be fair, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes when itinerant painter Beronius arrives in the story (Simon J Berger, delivering a performance of rare discomfiting power). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, they still serve as effective ones.
Plot Progression
Once the foundations of tension planted, it is time to proceed to narrative business. The servant employed by the doctor, Hilda (the actress), duly goes missing in the forest. Indications of her escape and animal scratches on a tree get discovered but she is completely absent. Gossip and fears regarding a human-devouring bear prowling the woods spread, yet the clergyman has another theory that he and Jussi set out to prove.
A Strange Creation
This Bear Drama is a somewhat odd beast. It creates a fine sense of the desolation that lets suspicion and prejudice and grim legends flourish based on local folklore that bears might be dominated or possessed by the souls of men. It avoids idealising the tough existence experienced by the villagers, in which brutality, be it from the wild or mankind, lurks constantly at the periphery, poised to explode. But the characters rarely become beyond symbols – or perhaps, as the struggles amid fairness and revenge, logic and faith, good and evil escalate, representative characters within a moral tale – which stops the entire production fully becoming immersive.
Tonal Inconsistencies
Additionally, there are numerous stylistically clashing moments in which the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and discern Hilda’s fate turns nearly laughable. He positions himself looking at broken milk pots and strands of fur in hay barns like a combined the Belgian detective and Sherlock Holmes – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (none of whom had to lick a mixture of blood spatter and the boss’s spit to agree that indeed, it was definitely dried blood at the crime scene), before announcing his newest conclusion and extracting a corpse from a bog.
Opposing Goals
The local leaders are determined proving that the maid was killed by a bear, perhaps to protect the calm, perhaps to shield one of their own. The clergyman is intent on establishing otherwise, and the evidence so quickly stacks up supporting his view that once more the drama’s plausibility and audience tolerance are tested. In its finest moments, the series is reminiscent of the TV version some years back of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the opposing attractions and terrors presented by science and religion. At its worst, it’s more like a bear-themed police procedural. Nevertheless, it appears to offer the answer to that debated question: “Females, choose the animal.”
To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ currently.
