A heated discussion recently spread widely on social media, after a user posed a query for females: would you rather be lost in a forest with a man or a bear? Similar to the best hypothetical scenarios, it exposed vastly opposing perspectives and life encounters, highlighted chasms between the sexes, and could easily to induce an existential crisis for anyone pondering about it for too long. There was also the predictable follow-up where men of a certain stripe came online to inform females how stupid they were for choosing the bear and went on to limn the punishments they merited for that choice. This at minimum allowed the women who were uncertain over their choice to make it with renewed assurance.
Dramatising the Scenario
To Cook a Bear skillfully brings to life this clever small premise. The six-part series is based on Scandinavian writer the novelist’s 2018 novel with the identical title (translated two years later for an English audience). It traces the tribulations of a clergyman (the lead actor) and his household when they arrive to begin a fresh religious post in Kengis, an isolated settlement in northern Sweden, in 1852. In a place lacking many joys, none of the inhabitants especially appreciate his puritanical approach to drinking and dancing, yet it is his protection of impoverished people – especially the native Sami population, from which hails the preacher’s adopted son Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his belief in social justice and equality that sets him in direct opposition with the Kengis powers that be.
The Opposing Forces
Quickly collaborating against him are the lawman the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the fearsome factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (the actress), seen early on dismissing a newly injured laborer 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 for a few bottles of liquor provided by the unsettling store owner Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness pales once itinerant painter the artist Beronius arrives in the story (the performer, providing an acting turn of rare unsettling intensity). If they are – like the pastor himself – just slightly beyond than caricatures, they are at least potent archetypes.
Narrative Development
With the seeds of tension sown, the moment arrives to get down to narrative business. The servant employed by the doctor, the character Hilda (the actress), accordingly vanishes in the forest. Signs of her flight and animal scratches on a tree get discovered but she is nowhere to be seen. Rumours and fears regarding a human-devouring beast prowling the woodland circulate, but the pastor has another theory that he and Jussi embark to prove.
An Odd Beast
To Cook a Bear is a somewhat peculiar show. It creates a strong impression of the desolation that allows suspicion and bias and dark myths flourish from the native legend that animals can be controlled or inhabited by the souls of men. It avoids romanticise the tough existence experienced by the residents, where brutality, whether that of nature or people, lurks constantly on the edges, waiting to erupt. But the characters rarely become beyond symbols – or perhaps, while the conflicts between justice and revenge, logic and religion, virtue and wickedness intensify, emblematic figures in a fable – which stops the whole thing truly becoming immersive.
Stylistic Shifts
Additionally, there are numerous stylistically clashing instances in which the clergyman’s skill to discover clues and determine Hilda’s fate becomes nearly laughable. He stands looking at shattered containers and strands of fur within storage sheds as a fusion of Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (neither of whom had to lick a mixture of blood spatter and the boss’s spit to agree that indeed, it was clearly coagulated blood on the site), prior to declaring his latest deduction and extracting a corpse from a bog.
Opposing Goals
The village elite are determined proving that Hilda met her end by a bear, maybe to protect the peace, perhaps to protect one of their own. The pastor is intent on proving the opposite, and the proof so rapidly stacks up in his favour that again the show’s credibility and audience tolerance are tested. In its finest moments, the series is reminiscent of the adaptation a few years ago of Sarah Perry’s The Essex Serpent, through its portrayal of the competing attractions and terrors offered by rational thought and religion. At its worst, it’s more like a bear-themed police procedural. Nevertheless, it appears to provide the answer to that debated question: “Ladies, take the bear.”
The series is on Disney+ now.
