An heated debate recently spread widely on social media, after someone asked a query for females: which would you prefer be lost in a forest alongside a male or with a bear? Similar to the most engaging thought experiments, it revealed vastly opposing worldviews and experiences, highlighted divides among genders, and was likely to induce an existential crisis for anyone pondering on it extensively. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable coda where men of a certain stripe came online to inform females how foolish they were to select the animal and went on to limn the punishments they deserved for it. This at least allowed those females who were uncertain over their choice to make it with a new confidence.
Portraying the Scenario
To Cook a Bear effectively brings to life this clever small premise. The six-part drama is based on Swedish author the novelist’s 2018 book of the same name (rendered two years later for an English audience). It follows the struggles of a pastor (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his household as they come to start a new ministry within Kengis, an isolated settlement in Sweden’s north, during the mid-19th century. In a place with few pleasures, not one of the locals particularly appreciate his puritanical stance on alcohol and revelry, yet it is his defense of the poor – especially the native Sami population, from among whom hails the preacher’s foster child the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his belief in social justice and equal rights that places him on a collision course against the Kengis powers that be.
The Antagonists
Quickly collaborating against him are the lawman Brahe (the performer), the intimidating factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen initially firing a recently mangled worker with minimal compensation while he is still gibbering upon seeing his crushed hand, and anyone else who profit from a populace who can be bought with some containers of liquor sold by the unsettling shopkeeper the merchant Lindmark (the actor). Although, to be fair, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes when itinerant painter the artist Beronius arrives in the story (Simon J Berger, providing an acting turn of rare discomfiting power). While they remain – like the pastor himself – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, they are at least effective ones.
Narrative Development
With the seeds of conflict planted, it is time to proceed to narrative business. The maid from the doctor’s house, Hilda (the actress), duly goes missing from the woods. Signs of her flight and animal scratches upon a trunk are found but she is completely absent. Rumours and fears of a man/maid-eating bear roaming the woodland spread, but the pastor has another theory that he and Jussi embark to prove.
A Strange Creation
To Cook a Bear is a somewhat peculiar show. It creates a fine sense of the desolation that lets suspicion and bias and grim legends flourish based on local folklore that bears can be controlled or possessed by the spirits of humans. It avoids romanticise the tough existence experienced by the residents, in which violence, be it from the wild or mankind, always looms at the periphery, waiting to erupt. Yet the personas seldom evolve beyond symbols – or maybe, as the struggles between justice and revenge, rationality and religion, good and evil escalate, representative characters in a fable – preventing the entire production truly coming to life.
Tonal Inconsistencies
And then, exist numerous tonally jarring instances where the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and discern Hilda’s fate becomes almost risible. He positions himself observing shattered containers and clumps of hair within storage sheds like a combined Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (none of whom were required to taste a blend 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 out of a swamp.
Opposing Goals
The village elite are bent on proving that Hilda was killed by a bear, maybe to protect the peace, perhaps to shield a fellow elite. The clergyman is bent on establishing otherwise, and the proof so rapidly stacks up supporting his view that once more the show’s credibility and the viewer’s patience get strained. In its finest moments, the series is reminiscent of the TV version a few years ago of the author’s The Essex Serpent, with its evocation of the opposing allures and fears presented by science and belief. In its low points, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it does seem to provide the answer to that debated question: “Ladies, take the bear.”
To Cook a Bear is on Disney+ currently.
