A intense discussion lately spread widely on social media, after a user posed the question for females: would you rather find yourself stranded in a forest with a man or with a bear? Similar to the most engaging thought experiments, it revealed vastly opposing worldviews and life encounters, illuminated divides among genders, and could easily cause an existential crisis for anyone pondering about it extensively. Additionally, there came the predictable coda where some males came online to inform females how stupid they were for choosing the animal and proceeded to limn the consequences they merited for that choice. This at minimum allowed those females who had been hesitating about their decision to make it with a new confidence.
Dramatising the Setup
To Cook a Bear effectively brings to life this nifty little setup. This six-episode drama is based from Swedish author the novelist’s 2018 book of the same name (translated in 2020 for an English audience). It follows the tribulations of a clergyman (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his household as they come to begin a fresh religious post within Kengis, an isolated settlement in Sweden’s north, during the mid-19th century. In a place lacking many joys, not one of the locals particularly warm to his strict approach to alcohol and dancing, but it is his defense of impoverished people – especially the native Sami population, from which hails the preacher’s foster child the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in societal fairness and equality that places him in direct opposition against the Kengis powers that be.
The Opposing Forces
Soon in cahoots opposing him include the lawman the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating mill owner Madam Sjödahl (the actress), observed early on firing a newly injured laborer with minimal compensation as he remains gibbering at the sight his crushed hand, and anyone else who profit from a populace easily swayed with some containers of liquor provided by the creepy store owner Lindmark (the actor). Although, to be fair, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes when itinerant painter the artist Beronius arrives on the scene (the performer, providing a performance of rare discomfiting power). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – only a little more being stereotypes, they are at least potent archetypes.
Narrative Development
With the seeds of tension planted, the moment arrives to proceed with the storyline. The servant from the doctor’s house, Hilda (the actress), accordingly goes missing from the woods. Signs of her flight and bear markings on a tree get discovered yet she remains completely absent. Rumours and fears regarding a human-devouring beast prowling the woods spread, but the pastor holds a different view which he and his ward set out to prove.
A Strange Creation
To Cook a Bear is a somewhat peculiar show. It conjures a strong impression of the desolation that lets distrust and prejudice and grim legends thrive from the native legend that animals might be dominated or inhabited by the spirits of men. And it doesn’t idealising the hardscrabble life led by the residents, in which brutality, whether that of the wild or people, always looms on the edges, waiting to erupt. Yet the personas rarely become more than ciphers – or perhaps, as the struggles amid fairness and vengeance, logic and faith, virtue and evil intensify, emblematic figures within a moral tale – which stops the whole thing truly becoming immersive.
Tonal Inconsistencies
And then, exist numerous tonally jarring instances in which the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and discern the maid’s destiny turns nearly laughable. He stands looking at shattered containers and clumps of hair within storage sheds as a fusion of the Belgian detective and Sherlock Holmes – alongside Jussi a rather hapless Hastings-cum-Watson (none of whom were required to taste a mixture of blood spatter and the boss’s spit to agree that, yes, it was clearly coagulated blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his latest deduction and pulling a corpse out of a swamp.
Opposing Goals
The local leaders are determined proving that Hilda met her end by an animal, perhaps to preserve the calm, perhaps to protect a fellow elite. The clergyman is bent on establishing the opposite, and the proof so rapidly stacks up in his favour that again the show’s credibility and audience tolerance are tested. At its best, the series evokes memories of the adaptation a few years ago of the author’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the competing allures and fears offered by rational thought and religion. At its worst, it resembles a bear-themed police procedural. Still, it does seem to provide the response to that debated question: “Females, choose the animal.”
The series is on Disney+ now.
