A heated debate lately spread widely across online platforms, after someone asked a query to women: which would you prefer find yourself stranded in the woods with a man or with a bear? Similar to the best hypothetical scenarios, it revealed wildly different worldviews and experiences, highlighted chasms between the sexes, and was likely cause an existential crisis for anyone pondering about it for too long. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable follow-up where some males took to the internet to inform females how foolish they had been for choosing the animal and went on to describe the consequences they merited for it. This at minimum allowed the women who had been hesitating over their choice to make it with renewed assurance.
Dramatising the Setup
To Cook a Bear skillfully brings to life this nifty small premise. The six-part series is adapted from Swedish author the novelist’s 2018 book with the identical title (rendered in 2020 for English readers). It follows the struggles of a clergyman (the lead actor) and his family when they arrive to start a new ministry within Kengis, an isolated settlement in Sweden’s north, in 1852. Within a community with few pleasures, not one of the inhabitants particularly warm to his strict approach to alcohol and revelry, but it is his defense of impoverished people – particularly the native Sami population, from which hails the pastor’s adopted son the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in societal fairness and equality that sets him on a collision course with the Kengis local authorities.
The Opposing Forces
Soon collaborating against him are the sheriff the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the intimidating factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (the actress), observed early on firing a newly injured laborer with minimal compensation while he is still babbling at the sight of his pulped hand, and all others who benefit from a community who can be bought with some containers of liquor sold by the unsettling shopkeeper the merchant Lindmark (the actor). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness pales when travelling artist Beronius arrives in the story (Simon J Berger, providing a performance of rare unsettling intensity). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – only a little more than caricatures, they are at least potent archetypes.
Plot Progression
Once the foundations of tension sown, the moment arrives to get down with the storyline. The servant from the doctor’s house, Hilda (the actress), duly vanishes in the forest. Indications of her escape and animal scratches upon a trunk get discovered yet she remains completely absent. Rumours and anxieties of a man/maid-eating bear prowling the woods spread, yet the clergyman has another theory that he and Jussi set out to verify.
An Odd Beast
This Bear Drama is a somewhat odd beast. It creates a strong impression of the desolation that allows suspicion and bias and dark myths thrive based on local folklore that bears can be controlled or possessed by the spirits of humans. And it doesn’t romanticise the hardscrabble life led by the villagers, where brutality, be it from the wild or mankind, lurks constantly on the edges, waiting to erupt. Yet the personas rarely become beyond symbols – or maybe, as the struggles amid fairness and vengeance, logic and religion, good and wickedness intensify, emblematic figures in a fable – which stops the entire production truly coming to life.
Tonal Inconsistencies
Additionally, there are the many tonally jarring instances where the pastor’s ability to discover clues and determine the maid’s destiny turns nearly laughable. He positions himself observing shattered containers and clumps of hair within storage sheds like a combined Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – with Jussi a rather hapless assistant figure (none of whom were required to lick a blend of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to confirm that indeed, it was definitely dried blood on the site), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and pulling a corpse from a bog.
Opposing Goals
The village elite are bent on proving that Hilda met her end by a bear, perhaps to preserve the peace, perhaps to protect one of their own. The clergyman is intent on establishing the opposite, and the proof so quickly stacks up supporting his view that once more the drama’s plausibility and the viewer’s patience get strained. At its best, the series is reminiscent of the adaptation some years back of the author’s The Essex Serpent, with its evocation of the opposing allures and terrors presented by rational thought and belief. At its worst, it’s more like Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it does seem to provide the response to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”
The series streams on Disney+ now.
