A intense discussion recently spread widely across online platforms, following someone posed the question to women: which would you prefer find yourself stranded in a forest with a man or a bear? Like all the best thought experiments, it exposed vastly opposing perspectives and life encounters, illuminated chasms among genders, and could easily to induce an existential crisis if you thought on it for too long. Additionally, there came the predictable follow-up where some males came online to tell women how stupid they had been for choosing the bear and went on to limn the punishments they deserved for it. This at minimum enabled those females who had been hesitating over their choice to decide with renewed assurance.
Dramatising the Setup
To Cook a Bear effectively brings to life this clever small premise. The six-part drama is based from Scandinavian writer the novelist’s 2018 novel with the identical title (translated in 2020 for an English audience). It traces the struggles of a pastor (the lead actor) and his family as they come to start a fresh religious post within Kengis, an isolated settlement in Sweden’s north, in 1852. In a place with few pleasures, not one of the locals especially appreciate his puritanical stance on drinking and revelry, yet it is his protection of impoverished people – especially the native Sami population, from among whom comes the pastor’s adopted son the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his conviction in social justice and equality that sets him in direct opposition against the Kengis local authorities.
The Opposing Forces
Quickly in cahoots opposing him are the sheriff the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed early on dismissing a recently mangled laborer with minimal compensation as he remains gibbering at the sight his crushed hand, and all others who profit from a populace who can be bought with some containers of liquor sold by the creepy store owner the merchant Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness pales once travelling artist Beronius arrives in the story (Simon J Berger, delivering an acting turn of exceptional discomfiting power). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond than caricatures, they still serve as effective ones.
Narrative Development
Once the foundations of tension planted, it is time to get down to narrative business. The servant from the doctor’s house, Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), accordingly goes missing in the forest. Signs of her flight and animal scratches upon a trunk get discovered yet she remains nowhere to be seen. Rumours and anxieties regarding a human-devouring bear prowling the woodland circulate, yet the clergyman holds a different view that he and Jussi embark to prove.
A Strange Creation
To Cook a Bear is a somewhat odd beast. It creates 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 souls of men. It avoids romanticise the hardscrabble life led by the residents, where brutality, whether that of nature or people, lurks constantly on the edges, poised to explode. But the characters seldom evolve beyond symbols – or maybe, while the conflicts amid fairness and vengeance, rationality and religion, good and evil escalate, emblematic figures in a fable – preventing the entire production truly coming to life.
Tonal Inconsistencies
And then, there are numerous tonally jarring moments in which the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and discern the maid’s destiny turns nearly laughable. He stands observing broken milk pots and clumps of hair within storage sheds as a fusion of Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (none of whom had to lick a mixture of blood droplets and the boss’s spit to confirm that indeed, it was clearly coagulated blood at the crime scene), before announcing his latest deduction and extracting a corpse out of a swamp.
Opposing Goals
The local leaders are determined proving that the maid met her end by an animal, perhaps to protect the peace, or possibly to protect a fellow elite. The clergyman is bent on establishing otherwise, and the evidence so quickly accumulates supporting his view that again the drama’s plausibility and the viewer’s patience are tested. At its best, To Cook a Bear evokes memories of the TV version a few years ago of the author’s The Essex Serpent, through its portrayal of the competing attractions and fears offered by rational thought and religion. In its low points, it’s more like a bear-themed police procedural. Still, it appears to offer the answer to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”
To Cook a Bear is on Disney+ now.
