A intense discussion lately went viral on social media, following a user asked the question to women: would you rather be lost in the woods alongside a male or a bear? Like all the best thought experiments, it revealed wildly different perspectives and life encounters, highlighted divides between the sexes, and could easily to induce an existential crisis for anyone pondering about it for too long. Additionally, there came the predictable follow-up in which men of a certain stripe came online to tell females how foolish they were for choosing the bear and went on to limn the punishments they deserved for it. This at minimum allowed those females who were uncertain about their decision to make it with a new confidence.
Portraying the Scenario
To Cook a Bear effectively brings to life this nifty little setup. The six-part drama is based on Swedish author the novelist’s 2018 novel of the same name (translated in 2020 for English readers). It traces the struggles of a clergyman (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his family as they come to begin a fresh religious post in Kengis, a remote village in Sweden’s north, in 1852. Within a community lacking many joys, none of the locals especially appreciate his strict stance on drinking and dancing, yet it is his protection of the poor – particularly the native Sami population, from among whom hails the preacher’s foster child the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in societal fairness and equality that sets him on a collision course with the Kengis powers that be.
The Antagonists
Soon in cahoots against him include the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the intimidating factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (the actress), seen initially firing a newly injured laborer with minimal compensation while he is still babbling upon seeing his crushed hand, and all others who profit from a populace who can be bought for a few bottles of liquor sold by the unsettling store owner the merchant Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). However, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness pales when travelling artist Beronius arrives in the story (the performer, providing a performance of rare unsettling intensity). If they are – similar to the clergyman – only a little more being stereotypes, they are at least effective ones.
Narrative Development
With the seeds of tension sown, it is time to get down to narrative business. The servant from the doctor’s house, the character Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), duly vanishes in the forest. Indications of her flight and animal scratches upon a trunk get discovered yet she remains nowhere to be seen. Gossip and anxieties regarding a human-devouring beast prowling the woods circulate, yet the clergyman has another theory that he and Jussi embark to verify.
A Strange Creation
This Bear Drama is a somewhat odd beast. It conjures a fine sense of the desolation that allows distrust and prejudice and dark myths flourish based on local folklore that bears can be controlled or inhabited by the souls of humans. It avoids romanticise the tough existence led by the villagers, in which brutality, whether that of nature or mankind, lurks constantly on the edges, waiting to erupt. But the characters seldom evolve more than ciphers – or perhaps, as the struggles amid fairness and revenge, rationality and faith, good and evil intensify, representative characters within a moral tale – preventing the entire production truly becoming immersive.
Tonal Inconsistencies
Additionally, exist numerous tonally jarring instances in which the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and determine Hilda’s fate becomes nearly laughable. He positions himself looking at broken milk pots and clumps of hair in hay barns like a combined Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (none of whom were required to taste a mixture of blood droplets and the boss’s spit to agree that, yes, it was definitely coagulated blood on the site), before announcing his newest conclusion and extracting a corpse out of a swamp.
Clashing Agendas
The local leaders are bent on demonstrating that Hilda met her end by an animal, maybe to protect the calm, perhaps to protect a fellow elite. The clergyman is bent on proving the opposite, and the proof so quickly accumulates in his favour that again the drama’s plausibility and the viewer’s patience get strained. At its best, the series is reminiscent of the adaptation some years back of the author’s The Essex Serpent, with its evocation of the opposing attractions and fears offered by science and religion. In its low points, it’s more like Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Nevertheless, it does seem to provide the answer to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”
To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ now.
