A heated discussion lately went viral on social media, following someone posed a query to women: would you rather find yourself stranded in the woods alongside a male or with a bear? Similar to the most engaging thought experiments, it revealed wildly different perspectives and life encounters, illuminated divides between the sexes, and was likely to induce an existential crisis for anyone pondering on it for too long. There was also the predictable coda where some males came online to tell women how foolish they were to select the animal and went on to limn the consequences they merited for that choice. This at minimum enabled the women who were uncertain about their decision to make it with renewed assurance.
Dramatising the Setup
To Cook a Bear effectively brings to life this clever little setup. This six-episode series is adapted on Scandinavian writer the novelist’s 2018 book of the same name (translated two years later for English readers). It follows the struggles of a clergyman (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his family as they come to start a fresh religious post within Kengis, an isolated settlement in Sweden’s north, during the mid-19th century. Within a community lacking many joys, none of the locals especially appreciate his strict stance on alcohol and revelry, yet it is his defense of impoverished people – especially the native Sami population, from among whom comes the preacher’s adopted son Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his conviction in social justice and equal rights that places him in direct opposition against the Kengis powers that be.
The Opposing Forces
Quickly collaborating opposing him include the lawman the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the fearsome mill owner the matron Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed initially firing a recently mangled laborer with minimal compensation as he remains gibbering upon seeing his crushed hand, and anyone else who benefit from a populace easily swayed for a few bottles of liquor sold by the unsettling store owner Lindmark (the actor). However, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness pales once itinerant painter Beronius arrives in the story (the performer, delivering an acting turn of rare discomfiting power). If they are – like the pastor himself – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, they are at least potent archetypes.
Narrative Development
With the seeds of tension planted, it is time to get down to narrative business. The servant employed by the doctor, the character Hilda (the actress), duly goes missing in the forest. Indications of her flight and animal scratches upon a trunk are found but she is completely absent. Gossip and fears regarding a human-devouring beast roaming the woods spread, yet the clergyman holds a different view that he and Jussi embark to verify.
A Strange Creation
This Bear Drama is a somewhat odd beast. It creates a strong impression of the bleakness that lets suspicion and bias and dark myths thrive from the native legend that animals might be dominated or inhabited by the spirits of humans. It avoids idealising the hardscrabble life experienced by the residents, in which violence, be it from the wild or people, lurks constantly at the periphery, poised to explode. But the characters seldom evolve beyond symbols – or maybe, while the conflicts between justice and vengeance, rationality and faith, good and wickedness intensify, emblematic figures within a moral tale – which stops the whole thing fully becoming immersive.
Tonal Inconsistencies
And then, exist numerous stylistically clashing instances in which the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and determine the maid’s destiny turns almost risible. He positions himself looking at shattered containers and strands of fur within storage sheds as a fusion of the Belgian detective and Sherlock Holmes – with Jussi a rather hapless Hastings-cum-Watson (neither of whom had to taste a mixture of blood droplets and the boss’s spit to confirm that, yes, it was clearly dried blood on the site), prior to declaring his latest deduction and pulling a corpse from a bog.
Opposing Goals
The local leaders are bent on proving that the maid was killed by a bear, maybe to preserve the calm, perhaps to shield a fellow elite. The clergyman is intent on proving the opposite, and the evidence so rapidly stacks up supporting his view that once more the show’s credibility and audience tolerance get strained. At its best, the series evokes memories of the TV version some years back of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the competing attractions and fears offered by science and religion. At its worst, it resembles a bear-themed police procedural. Still, it does seem to provide the response to the earlier query: “Females, choose the animal.”
The series streams on Disney+ currently.
