An intense debate lately went viral on social media, following a user posed the question for females: would you rather find yourself stranded in the woods with a man or a bear? Like all the most engaging hypothetical scenarios, it exposed vastly opposing perspectives and experiences, illuminated divides between the sexes, and could easily cause an existential crisis if you thought on it extensively. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable follow-up where some males came online to tell women how stupid they were to select the animal and went on to limn the consequences they merited for it. This at least allowed those females who had been hesitating about their decision to decide with renewed assurance.
Portraying the Scenario
To Cook a Bear skillfully dramatises this clever little setup. This six-episode drama is based on Swedish author the novelist’s 2018 book with the identical title (rendered in 2020 for an English audience). It traces the struggles of a pastor (the lead actor) and his household when they arrive to start a fresh religious post in Kengis, an isolated village in northern Sweden, in 1852. Within a community lacking many joys, not one of the inhabitants especially appreciate his puritanical stance on drinking and dancing, yet it is his defense of the poor – especially the indigenous Sami, from which comes the preacher’s adopted son Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in societal fairness and equal rights that sets him in direct opposition against the Kengis local authorities.
The Opposing Forces
Soon in cahoots opposing him are the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (the actress), observed initially firing a recently mangled worker with a month’s pay while he is still babbling upon seeing his crushed hand, and anyone else who benefit from a populace easily swayed with some containers of the whisky provided by the creepy store owner the merchant Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness pales once itinerant painter the artist Beronius arrives in the story (the performer, delivering a performance of rare unsettling intensity). If they are – like the pastor himself – only a little more being stereotypes, they still serve as effective ones.
Plot Progression
With the seeds of tension planted, it is time to proceed with the storyline. The servant employed by the doctor, Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), duly vanishes in the forest. Indications of her escape and bear markings on a tree get discovered but she is nowhere to be seen. Gossip and fears regarding a human-devouring bear prowling the woodland circulate, yet the clergyman holds a different view which he and his ward set out to verify.
An Odd Beast
To Cook a Bear is a somewhat peculiar show. It conjures a strong impression of the desolation that allows suspicion and prejudice and grim legends flourish from the native legend that bears can be controlled or inhabited by the spirits of men. It avoids idealising the hardscrabble life led by the residents, in which brutality, whether that of the wild or people, lurks constantly on the edges, poised to explode. Yet the personas seldom evolve more than ciphers – or maybe, as the struggles amid fairness and vengeance, rationality and religion, good and evil intensify, emblematic figures within a moral tale – preventing the entire production fully becoming immersive.
Stylistic Shifts
Additionally, exist numerous stylistically clashing instances where the clergyman’s skill to discover clues and determine the maid’s destiny becomes nearly laughable. He stands observing broken milk pots and clumps of hair within storage sheds like a combined Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (neither of whom were required to taste a blend of blood spatter and the boss’s spit to agree that, yes, it was clearly dried blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and extracting a body from a bog.
Clashing Agendas
The local leaders are bent on demonstrating that the maid met her end by an animal, maybe to protect the peace, perhaps to protect a fellow elite. The clergyman is intent on establishing otherwise, and the proof so quickly stacks up supporting his view that again the drama’s plausibility and the viewer’s patience are tested. At its best, To Cook a Bear is reminiscent of the TV version a few years ago of Sarah Perry’s The Essex Serpent, with its evocation of the competing attractions and terrors presented by science and religion. In its low points, it’s more like Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Nevertheless, it appears to provide the response to that debated question: “Females, choose the animal.”
To Cook a Bear is on Disney+ currently.
