An intense discussion recently spread widely across online platforms, after a user asked a query to women: which would you prefer be lost in a forest with a man or with a bear? Like all the best thought experiments, it exposed wildly different perspectives and experiences, highlighted chasms among genders, and was likely to induce an existential crisis for anyone pondering about it for too long. Additionally, there came the predictable coda where men of a certain stripe came online to inform females how foolish they were to select the animal and proceeded to limn the punishments they merited for it. This at least allowed the women who were uncertain about their decision to decide with a new confidence.
Portraying the Setup
To Cook a Bear effectively brings to life this nifty little setup. The six-part drama is based from Scandinavian writer the novelist’s 2018 book with the identical title (rendered in 2020 for an English audience). It follows the tribulations of a pastor (the lead actor) and his household as they come to begin a new ministry within Kengis, a remote settlement in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. Within a community lacking many joys, not one of the locals especially warm to his puritanical stance on drinking and dancing, but it is his defense of impoverished people – particularly the indigenous Sami, from which hails the preacher’s foster child the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in social justice and equal rights that places him on a collision course against the Kengis powers that be.
The Antagonists
Soon in cahoots against him are the lawman Brahe (the performer), the intimidating mill owner the matron Sjödahl (the actress), seen initially firing a newly injured laborer with minimal compensation as he remains babbling at the sight his crushed hand, and all others who profit from a community easily swayed with some containers of the whisky sold by the unsettling store owner Lindmark (the actor). However, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes once travelling artist Beronius arrives on the scene (the performer, providing an acting turn of exceptional discomfiting power). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – only a little more being stereotypes, they still serve as potent archetypes.
Narrative Development
With the seeds of conflict planted, it is time to get down with the storyline. The maid from the doctor’s house, Hilda (the actress), duly 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 of a man/maid-eating beast roaming the woods circulate, yet the clergyman holds a different view which he and his ward embark to verify.
An Odd Beast
To Cook a Bear is a slightly odd beast. It creates a fine sense of the bleakness that allows distrust and prejudice and dark myths flourish from the native legend that bears can be controlled or possessed by the spirits of men. And it doesn’t idealising the tough existence led by the residents, where brutality, be it from the wild or people, lurks constantly at the periphery, poised to explode. But the characters rarely become more than ciphers – or maybe, while the conflicts amid fairness and vengeance, logic and faith, good and evil escalate, representative characters within a moral tale – preventing the entire production truly coming to life.
Stylistic Shifts
Additionally, there are numerous stylistically clashing instances in which the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and determine Hilda’s fate turns almost risible. He stands looking at shattered containers and clumps of hair in hay barns like a combined Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (none of whom had to taste a mixture of blood droplets and the boss’s spit to confirm that indeed, it was clearly dried blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and pulling a body from a bog.
Clashing Agendas
The local leaders are determined proving that Hilda met her end by a bear, maybe to preserve the calm, or possibly to shield a fellow elite. The clergyman is bent on proving otherwise, and the evidence so rapidly stacks up supporting his view that again the drama’s plausibility and the viewer’s patience get strained. At its best, the series evokes memories of the adaptation some years back of the author’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the competing allures and terrors presented by science and religion. At its worst, it’s more like a bear-themed police procedural. Still, it appears to provide the answer to that debated question: “Ladies, take the bear.”
The series streams on Disney+ now.
