An heated discussion lately spread widely across online platforms, following someone posed the question for females: would you rather find yourself stranded in a forest alongside a male or a bear? Similar to the most engaging hypothetical scenarios, it exposed wildly different perspectives and experiences, illuminated chasms among genders, and could easily cause an existential crisis for anyone pondering about it extensively. There was also the almost inevitable coda where men of a certain stripe came online to inform women how stupid they were to select the animal and proceeded to limn the consequences they merited for that choice. This at least enabled those females who were uncertain over their choice to decide with renewed assurance.
Portraying the Setup
To Cook a Bear skillfully dramatises this clever little setup. The six-part series is adapted from Swedish author the novelist’s 2018 book with the identical title (translated in 2020 for English readers). It traces the struggles of a pastor (the lead actor) and his family when they arrive to start a new ministry in Kengis, a remote village in Sweden’s north, in 1852. In a place lacking many joys, none of the locals particularly warm to his puritanical stance on drinking and revelry, but it is his protection of the poor – particularly the indigenous Sami, from among whom hails the pastor’s adopted son Jussi (the young actor) – and his conviction in social justice and equality that sets him on a collision course with the Kengis powers that be.
The Opposing Forces
Soon collaborating against him include the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the intimidating mill owner Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed early on dismissing a recently mangled worker with a month’s pay as he remains gibbering upon seeing of his pulped hand, and anyone else who profit from a community who can be bought with some containers of liquor sold by the creepy store owner the merchant Lindmark (the actor). However, to be fair, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes when travelling artist Beronius appears in the story (the performer, delivering an acting turn of exceptional unsettling intensity). If they are – like the pastor himself – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, they are at least potent archetypes.
Plot Progression
With the seeds of tension sown, it is time to get down with the storyline. The maid employed by the doctor, Hilda (the actress), accordingly goes missing from the woods. Signs of her flight and bear markings upon a trunk get discovered yet she remains completely absent. Rumours and fears regarding a human-devouring bear prowling the woods spread, yet the clergyman has another theory that he and Jussi embark to verify.
A Strange Creation
This Bear Drama is a slightly peculiar show. It conjures a strong impression of the bleakness that lets suspicion and prejudice and dark myths thrive from the native legend that animals can be controlled or inhabited by the spirits of men. It avoids idealising the tough existence experienced by the residents, in which brutality, be it from the wild or mankind, always looms on the edges, poised to explode. But the characters seldom evolve beyond symbols – or maybe, while the conflicts amid fairness and vengeance, logic and faith, good and wickedness escalate, emblematic figures within a moral tale – which stops the whole thing fully coming to life.
Stylistic Shifts
Additionally, there are numerous tonally jarring instances in which the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and determine the maid’s destiny becomes almost risible. He stands observing shattered containers and clumps of hair within storage sheds like a combined the Belgian detective and Sherlock Holmes – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (none of whom were required to taste a mixture of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to confirm that indeed, it was clearly coagulated blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and pulling a body from a bog.
Clashing Agendas
The village elite are determined demonstrating that the maid met her end by an animal, perhaps to preserve the calm, or possibly to protect one of their own. The pastor is intent on proving otherwise, and the proof so quickly accumulates supporting his view that again the show’s credibility and the viewer’s patience get strained. In its finest moments, the series is reminiscent of the TV version some years back of Sarah Perry’s The Essex Serpent, through its portrayal of the competing attractions and fears presented by science and belief. In its low points, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Nevertheless, it does seem to provide the answer to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”
The series streams on Disney+ currently.
