A heated discussion lately went viral on social media, after someone posed the question for females: which would you prefer be lost in a forest with a man or with a bear? Like all the best thought experiments, it exposed vastly opposing perspectives and life encounters, highlighted divides among genders, and could easily to induce an existential crisis if you thought about it extensively. There was also the predictable follow-up where some males came online to inform women how stupid they had been to select the bear and went on to limn the consequences they merited for it. This at minimum allowed the women who had been hesitating over their choice to decide with a new confidence.
Dramatising the Setup
To Cook a Bear effectively dramatises this clever small premise. The six-part drama is based on Swedish author the novelist’s 2018 book with the identical title (rendered two years later for English readers). It traces the tribulations of a pastor (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his household when they arrive to start a fresh religious post within Kengis, an isolated settlement in northern Sweden, in 1852. Within a community with few pleasures, none of the inhabitants particularly appreciate his puritanical approach to alcohol and dancing, but it is his protection of impoverished people – particularly the native Sami population, from which hails the preacher’s foster child the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his conviction in social justice and equal rights that sets him in direct opposition against the Kengis powers that be.
The Opposing Forces
Quickly in cahoots opposing him include the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the fearsome mill owner the matron Sjödahl (the actress), seen initially firing a recently mangled laborer with a month’s pay as he remains gibbering upon seeing of his pulped hand, and anyone else who benefit from a populace who can be bought for a few bottles of the whisky sold by the unsettling shopkeeper Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, to be fair, Lindmark’s creepiness pales once travelling artist the artist Beronius arrives in the story (the performer, providing an acting turn of exceptional discomfiting power). If they are – like the pastor himself – just slightly beyond than caricatures, they are at least effective ones.
Narrative Development
Once the foundations of tension sown, the moment arrives to proceed 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 upon a trunk get discovered but she is completely absent. Gossip and fears of a man/maid-eating beast prowling the woodland circulate, but the pastor holds a different view that he and Jussi set out to verify.
A Strange Creation
This Bear Drama is a slightly peculiar show. It creates a strong impression of the desolation that allows distrust and prejudice and dark myths flourish from the native legend that bears might be dominated or possessed by the spirits of men. And it doesn’t idealising the hardscrabble life experienced by the villagers, where brutality, whether that of nature or people, lurks constantly on the edges, poised to explode. But the characters rarely become more than ciphers – or perhaps, as the struggles between justice and revenge, logic and faith, good and wickedness escalate, representative characters in a fable – which stops the entire production fully coming to life.
Stylistic Shifts
And then, exist numerous stylistically clashing moments in which the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and discern the maid’s destiny becomes almost risible. He positions himself observing broken milk pots and strands of fur in hay barns as a fusion of Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (none of whom were required to lick a mixture of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to confirm that indeed, it was definitely coagulated blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his latest deduction and pulling a body from a bog.
Opposing Goals
The local leaders are determined proving that the maid was killed by an animal, perhaps to protect the calm, perhaps to protect a fellow elite. The pastor is intent on establishing otherwise, and the proof so rapidly accumulates supporting his view that once more the drama’s plausibility and the viewer’s patience get strained. At its best, the series is reminiscent of the adaptation a few years ago of the author’s The Essex Serpent, with its evocation of the competing allures and fears presented by rational thought and religion. At its worst, it’s more like Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Nevertheless, it appears to provide the response to the earlier query: “Females, choose the animal.”
To Cook a Bear is on Disney+ currently.
