A intense discussion lately spread widely across online platforms, after a user asked the question to women: would you rather be lost in a forest alongside a male or a bear? Similar to the most engaging hypothetical scenarios, it revealed wildly different perspectives and life encounters, illuminated divides among genders, and was likely to induce an existential crisis for anyone pondering on it for too long. There was also the predictable follow-up where some males took to the internet to inform women how stupid they were for choosing the animal and proceeded to limn the consequences they deserved for that choice. This at least allowed the women who had been hesitating about their decision to decide with renewed assurance.
Dramatising the Setup
To Cook a Bear effectively brings to life this nifty small premise. This six-episode series is based on Scandinavian writer the novelist’s 2018 novel with the identical title (rendered in 2020 for English readers). It follows the struggles of a pastor (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his household when they arrive to begin a fresh religious post within Kengis, an isolated settlement in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. Within a community with few pleasures, not one of the locals especially warm to his strict stance on drinking and revelry, but it is his protection of the poor – particularly the native Sami population, from among whom comes the preacher’s adopted son Jussi (the young actor) – and his conviction in social justice and equality that places him on a collision course against the Kengis local authorities.
The Opposing Forces
Soon in cahoots against him include the lawman Brahe (the performer), the fearsome factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (the actress), observed initially firing a recently mangled laborer with minimal compensation as he remains gibbering upon seeing his crushed hand, and anyone else who profit from a community who can be bought for a few bottles of liquor provided by the unsettling store owner the merchant Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness pales once itinerant painter the artist Beronius appears in the story (Simon J Berger, delivering a performance of rare discomfiting power). If they are – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond than caricatures, they still serve as potent archetypes.
Narrative Development
Once the foundations of tension sown, the moment arrives to proceed with the storyline. The maid from the doctor’s house, the character Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), accordingly vanishes in the forest. Indications of her flight and animal scratches upon a trunk are found but she is completely absent. Gossip and anxieties regarding a human-devouring bear prowling the woodland spread, yet the clergyman has another theory that he and Jussi set out to verify.
An Odd Beast
This Bear Drama is a somewhat peculiar show. It conjures a fine sense of the bleakness that allows distrust and bias and dark myths flourish based on local folklore that bears can be controlled or inhabited by the souls of humans. And it doesn’t romanticise the tough existence led by the villagers, where violence, be it from nature or mankind, lurks constantly at the periphery, waiting to erupt. Yet the personas rarely become beyond symbols – or maybe, while the conflicts amid fairness and vengeance, logic and religion, good and wickedness escalate, emblematic figures in a fable – preventing the entire production fully becoming immersive.
Tonal Inconsistencies
Additionally, there are numerous stylistically clashing moments in which the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and determine Hilda’s fate turns nearly laughable. He stands looking at broken milk pots and strands of fur within storage sheds as a fusion of the Belgian detective and Sherlock Holmes – with Jussi a rather hapless Hastings-cum-Watson (neither of whom had to lick a blend of blood droplets and saliva from his superior to agree that indeed, it was clearly coagulated blood on the site), prior to declaring his latest deduction and extracting a body from a bog.
Opposing Goals
The local leaders are determined demonstrating that the maid was killed by an animal, maybe to protect the peace, or possibly to protect one of their own. The clergyman is bent on proving otherwise, and the proof so rapidly accumulates in his favour that again the drama’s plausibility and the viewer’s patience get strained. At its best, To Cook a Bear evokes memories of the TV version a few years ago of the author’s The Essex Serpent, through its portrayal of the opposing allures and terrors offered by rational thought and belief. In its low points, it’s more like Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Nevertheless, it appears to provide the response to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”
To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ currently.
