An heated debate lately went viral on social media, after someone posed a query for females: would you rather find yourself stranded in a forest alongside a male or a bear? Like all the best hypothetical scenarios, it exposed wildly different worldviews and life encounters, illuminated divides among genders, and was likely cause a deep personal dilemma if you thought about it for too long. Additionally, there came the predictable coda where some males came online to tell females how foolish they had been to select the animal and proceeded to limn the punishments they deserved for it. This at minimum allowed the women who had been hesitating over their choice to make it with a new confidence.
Dramatising the Scenario
To Cook a Bear skillfully brings to life this clever small premise. 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 tribulations of a pastor (the lead actor) and his family as they come to begin a new ministry within Kengis, a remote village in northern Sweden, in 1852. In a place lacking many joys, not one of the inhabitants especially warm to his puritanical stance on drinking and revelry, yet it is his defense of the poor – particularly the native Sami population, from among whom comes the pastor’s adopted son Jussi (the young actor) – and his conviction in societal fairness and equality that sets him in direct opposition against the Kengis powers that be.
The Opposing Forces
Soon in cahoots opposing him include the lawman the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the intimidating mill owner Madam Sjödahl (the actress), observed early on firing a newly injured laborer with minimal compensation while he is still gibbering upon seeing his crushed hand, and all others who benefit from a populace easily swayed with some containers of the whisky sold by the unsettling store owner the merchant Lindmark (the actor). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes when travelling artist the artist Beronius appears in the story (the performer, delivering a performance of exceptional unsettling intensity). 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 sown, it is time to get down to narrative business. The maid employed by the doctor, Hilda (the actress), accordingly vanishes from the woods. Indications of her flight and bear markings on a tree get discovered but she is completely absent. Rumours and anxieties regarding a human-devouring bear roaming the woodland circulate, yet the clergyman has another theory which he and his ward set out to verify.
An Odd Beast
This Bear Drama is a slightly peculiar show. It conjures a fine sense of the bleakness that allows suspicion and prejudice and grim legends flourish from the native legend that bears can be controlled or inhabited by the souls of men. It avoids idealising the tough existence experienced by the villagers, in which violence, be it from nature or people, lurks constantly at the periphery, poised to explode. But the characters seldom evolve more than ciphers – or perhaps, as the struggles amid fairness and vengeance, logic and religion, virtue and evil intensify, representative characters in a fable – which stops the whole thing fully becoming immersive.
Tonal Inconsistencies
Additionally, there are the many tonally jarring instances where the clergyman’s skill to discover clues and discern the maid’s destiny becomes almost risible. He stands looking at shattered containers and clumps of hair within storage sheds like a combined Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (neither of whom had to taste a blend of blood spatter and the boss’s spit to confirm that indeed, it was definitely dried blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and extracting a corpse out of a swamp.
Clashing Agendas
The local leaders are determined demonstrating that Hilda was killed by a bear, perhaps to protect the calm, perhaps to shield a fellow elite. The pastor is bent on establishing otherwise, and the evidence so quickly stacks up supporting his view that again the show’s credibility and audience tolerance get strained. In its finest moments, To Cook a Bear evokes memories of the TV version a few years ago of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the opposing attractions and fears presented by rational thought and religion. At its worst, it’s more like a bear-themed police procedural. Nevertheless, it appears to provide the answer to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”
The series streams on Disney+ now.
