A heated discussion recently spread widely on social media, after someone posed the question for females: which would you prefer be lost in the woods alongside a male or with a bear? Like all the most engaging thought experiments, it exposed vastly opposing worldviews and experiences, illuminated chasms between the sexes, and could easily to induce a deep personal dilemma for anyone pondering about it extensively. Additionally, there came the predictable coda where men of a certain stripe came online to inform women how stupid they were for choosing the bear and proceeded to describe the consequences they merited for it. This at minimum allowed the women who were uncertain over their choice to make it with renewed assurance.
Portraying the Setup
To Cook a Bear effectively brings to life this nifty small premise. This six-episode series is adapted from Scandinavian writer Mikael Niemi’s 2018 book of the same name (rendered in 2020 for English readers). It follows the tribulations of a clergyman (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his household as they come to begin a new ministry within Kengis, a remote settlement in Sweden’s north, in 1852. Within a community lacking many joys, none of the locals particularly appreciate his puritanical stance on drinking and dancing, but it is his defense of the poor – especially the indigenous Sami, from which hails the preacher’s foster child Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his belief in social justice and equality that sets him in direct opposition against the Kengis powers that be.
The Opposing Forces
Quickly in cahoots opposing him are the lawman the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (the actress), seen initially firing a newly injured laborer with a month’s pay as he remains gibbering upon seeing of his pulped hand, and anyone else who profit from a populace easily swayed with some containers of the whisky sold by the unsettling store owner the merchant Lindmark (the actor). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes once itinerant painter Beronius appears in the story (the performer, delivering a performance of exceptional discomfiting power). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond than caricatures, they still serve as potent archetypes.
Narrative Development
With the seeds of conflict sown, the moment arrives to get down with the storyline. The maid from the doctor’s house, Hilda (the actress), accordingly goes missing from the woods. Indications of her flight and animal scratches on a tree are found yet she remains completely absent. Gossip and anxieties regarding a human-devouring beast prowling the woodland spread, yet the clergyman holds a different view that he and Jussi embark to verify.
An Odd Beast
This Bear Drama is a slightly peculiar show. It conjures a fine sense of the bleakness that allows suspicion and prejudice and dark myths flourish based on local folklore that bears might be dominated or inhabited by the spirits of humans. And it doesn’t idealising the tough existence led by the residents, where violence, be it from the wild or people, always looms on the edges, waiting to erupt. Yet the personas rarely become beyond symbols – or maybe, while the conflicts between justice and vengeance, logic and religion, virtue and evil escalate, emblematic figures in a fable – preventing the entire production fully becoming immersive.
Stylistic Shifts
And then, there are the many stylistically clashing instances in which the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and determine the maid’s destiny turns almost risible. He stands looking at shattered containers and strands of fur in hay barns as a fusion of the Belgian detective the English sleuth – with Jussi a rather hapless Hastings-cum-Watson (neither of whom were required to lick a blend of blood droplets and saliva from his superior to confirm that, yes, it was definitely dried blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his latest deduction and pulling a corpse from a bog.
Opposing Goals
The village elite are bent on demonstrating that Hilda met her end by an animal, perhaps to preserve the calm, or possibly to protect one of their own. The pastor is intent on establishing otherwise, and the evidence so rapidly accumulates in his favour that once more the drama’s plausibility and audience tolerance get strained. At its best, the series evokes memories of the adaptation some years back of Sarah Perry’s The Essex Serpent, through its portrayal of the competing allures and terrors presented by rational thought and belief. At its worst, it resembles a bear-themed police procedural. Nevertheless, it appears to provide the answer to the earlier query: “Females, choose the animal.”
The series is on Disney+ now.
