An heated debate lately went viral across online platforms, following someone asked a query for females: would you rather be lost in a forest alongside a male or with a bear? Similar to the most engaging hypothetical scenarios, it revealed vastly opposing perspectives and experiences, highlighted divides among genders, and could easily to induce an existential crisis if you thought about it extensively. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable coda in which men of a certain stripe took to the internet to inform females how stupid they were to select the animal and proceeded to limn the punishments they deserved for that choice. This at minimum allowed those females who had been hesitating about their decision to make it with a new confidence.
Portraying the Scenario
To Cook a Bear effectively brings to life this clever small premise. This six-episode series is adapted from Scandinavian writer Mikael Niemi’s 2018 book with the identical title (translated two years later for English readers). It follows the tribulations of a pastor (the lead actor) and his household as they come to begin a fresh religious post in Kengis, a remote village in Sweden’s north, during the mid-19th century. In a place lacking many joys, none of the locals especially warm to his strict stance on alcohol and dancing, yet it is his defense of impoverished people – particularly the native Sami population, from among whom comes the pastor’s foster child Jussi (the young actor) – and his conviction in social justice and equal rights that sets him in direct opposition with the Kengis powers that be.
The Opposing Forces
Quickly collaborating against him are the lawman Brahe (the performer), the intimidating mill owner Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed initially dismissing a recently mangled worker with minimal compensation while he is still gibbering upon seeing his crushed hand, and all others who profit from a populace who can be bought with some containers of the whisky sold by the unsettling shopkeeper the merchant Lindmark (the actor). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes when travelling artist Beronius appears in the story (the performer, delivering an acting turn of exceptional discomfiting power). If they are – like the pastor himself – only a little more being stereotypes, they still serve as potent archetypes.
Narrative Development
With the seeds of tension planted, the moment arrives to proceed to narrative business. The servant employed by the doctor, Hilda (the actress), duly goes missing in the forest. Signs of her flight and animal scratches on a tree are found but she is completely absent. Gossip and fears regarding a human-devouring beast roaming the woodland spread, yet the clergyman holds a different view which he and his ward set out to verify.
A Strange Creation
This Bear Drama is a slightly peculiar show. It conjures a fine sense of the desolation that lets suspicion and prejudice and grim legends flourish based on local folklore that bears can be controlled or inhabited by the spirits of men. And it doesn’t romanticise the tough existence experienced by the residents, where brutality, be it from the wild or mankind, always looms at the periphery, poised to explode. But the characters seldom evolve more than ciphers – or maybe, while the conflicts amid fairness and vengeance, logic and religion, good and wickedness escalate, representative characters in a fable – preventing the entire production truly becoming immersive.
Stylistic Shifts
And then, there are numerous stylistically clashing moments where the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and determine the maid’s destiny becomes nearly laughable. He positions himself observing shattered containers and clumps of hair within storage sheds like a combined the Belgian detective and Sherlock Holmes – alongside Jussi a rather hapless Hastings-cum-Watson (none of whom had to lick a mixture of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to confirm that indeed, it was definitely coagulated blood at the crime scene), before announcing his latest deduction and extracting a body out of a swamp.
Clashing Agendas
The village elite are determined proving that Hilda was killed by a bear, maybe to protect the calm, or possibly to protect one of their own. The clergyman is intent on establishing otherwise, and the evidence so quickly stacks up supporting his view that once more the show’s credibility and audience tolerance get strained. In its finest moments, the series is reminiscent of the TV version some years back of the author’s The Essex Serpent, through its portrayal of the competing allures and terrors presented by science and belief. At its worst, it’s more like a bear-themed police procedural. Nevertheless, it appears to provide the response to that debated question: “Ladies, take the bear.”
To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ currently.
