A heated debate recently spread widely on social media, after someone asked the question for females: would you rather be lost in the woods with a man or a bear? Similar to the most engaging hypothetical scenarios, it revealed vastly opposing perspectives and life encounters, highlighted divides between the sexes, and could easily to induce an existential crisis for anyone pondering on it for too long. There was also the almost inevitable follow-up in which some males took to the internet to inform females how stupid they had been for choosing the animal and proceeded to describe the consequences they merited for it. This at least enabled the women who had been hesitating about their decision to decide with a new confidence.
Dramatising the Scenario
To Cook a Bear effectively brings to life this clever small premise. The six-part drama is based on Scandinavian writer Mikael Niemi’s 2018 novel with the identical title (rendered in 2020 for an English audience). It follows the struggles of a pastor (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his family as they come to begin a new ministry within Kengis, an isolated settlement in northern Sweden, in 1852. Within a community with few pleasures, not one of the inhabitants especially warm to his strict stance on alcohol and dancing, yet it is his defense of the poor – especially the indigenous Sami, from which hails the preacher’s adopted son Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his belief in social justice and equality that sets him on a collision course against the Kengis powers that be.
The Antagonists
Soon in cahoots opposing him include the lawman Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the fearsome mill owner Madam Sjödahl (the actress), observed initially dismissing a recently mangled laborer with a month’s pay while he is still babbling at the sight of his pulped hand, and all others who profit from a populace who can be bought with some containers of liquor sold by the unsettling shopkeeper the merchant Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). However, to be fair, Lindmark’s creepiness pales once travelling artist the artist Beronius arrives on the scene (the performer, providing an acting turn of exceptional unsettling intensity). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond than caricatures, they still serve as effective ones.
Narrative Development
With the seeds of tension planted, it is time to get down with the storyline. The maid employed by the doctor, Hilda (the actress), accordingly vanishes from the woods. Indications of her flight and animal scratches upon a trunk are found yet she remains nowhere to be seen. Rumours and fears of a man/maid-eating bear prowling the woodland circulate, but the pastor holds a different view that he and Jussi embark to verify.
A Strange Creation
To Cook a Bear is a somewhat odd beast. It conjures a strong impression of the bleakness that lets suspicion and prejudice and dark myths thrive based on local folklore that bears might be dominated or possessed by the souls of humans. It avoids idealising the hardscrabble life experienced by the villagers, where violence, be it from the wild or people, always looms at the periphery, poised to explode. Yet the personas seldom evolve more than ciphers – or maybe, as the struggles amid fairness and vengeance, rationality and faith, virtue and evil escalate, emblematic figures in a fable – which stops the entire production fully becoming immersive.
Tonal Inconsistencies
Additionally, exist numerous stylistically clashing instances where the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and discern Hilda’s fate turns almost risible. He stands observing shattered containers and clumps of hair in hay barns as a fusion of the Belgian detective the English sleuth – alongside Jussi a rather hapless assistant figure (neither of whom had to taste a blend of blood droplets and saliva from his superior to confirm that, yes, it was clearly dried blood on the site), before announcing his newest conclusion and pulling a corpse from a bog.
Opposing Goals
The local leaders are bent on proving that Hilda met her end by an animal, maybe to preserve the peace, or possibly to protect one of their own. The clergyman is intent on proving otherwise, and the proof so quickly accumulates 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 Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the competing attractions and terrors presented by rational thought and belief. In its low points, it’s more like Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Nevertheless, it does seem to offer the response to the earlier query: “Females, choose the animal.”
To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ currently.
