A heated debate recently spread widely on social media, after a user asked the question for females: would you rather be lost in the woods alongside a male or a bear? Similar to the best thought experiments, it revealed wildly different worldviews and life encounters, highlighted divides among genders, and could easily to induce an existential crisis for anyone pondering about it extensively. There was also the almost inevitable coda in which some males took to the internet to tell females how stupid they were to select the bear and went on to limn the punishments they deserved for that choice. This at least enabled those females who were uncertain about their decision to make it with a new confidence.
Portraying the Scenario
To Cook a Bear skillfully dramatises this nifty small premise. This six-episode series is based from Swedish author the novelist’s 2018 book with the identical title (rendered two years later for English readers). It follows the tribulations of a pastor (the lead actor) and his family when they arrive to start a new ministry in Kengis, a remote settlement in Sweden’s north, in 1852. Within a community lacking many joys, none of the inhabitants especially appreciate his strict stance on alcohol and dancing, yet it is his protection of impoverished people – particularly the indigenous Sami, from among whom comes the preacher’s adopted son Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in social justice and equality that places him in direct opposition with the Kengis powers that be.
The Antagonists
Quickly collaborating against him are the sheriff the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen initially dismissing a newly injured worker with minimal compensation while he is still babbling at the sight his crushed hand, and anyone else who profit from a community easily swayed with some containers of the whisky sold by the unsettling shopkeeper Lindmark (the actor). However, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness pales once itinerant painter the artist Beronius arrives on the scene (the performer, delivering a performance of rare unsettling intensity). While they remain – like the pastor himself – just slightly beyond than caricatures, they are at least effective ones.
Plot Progression
Once the foundations of conflict planted, it is time to proceed to narrative business. The servant employed by the doctor, the character Hilda (the actress), accordingly vanishes from the woods. Indications of her flight and bear markings upon a trunk get discovered but she is completely absent. Rumours and anxieties regarding a human-devouring bear roaming the woodland spread, but the pastor holds a different view which he and his ward embark to prove.
A Strange Creation
This Bear Drama is a somewhat odd beast. It creates a strong impression of the bleakness that allows suspicion and prejudice and dark myths thrive from the native legend that animals can be controlled or inhabited by the spirits of men. And it doesn’t romanticise the tough existence experienced by the villagers, in which brutality, be it from the wild or people, lurks constantly at the periphery, poised to explode. Yet the personas seldom evolve beyond symbols – or maybe, as the struggles between justice and revenge, rationality and religion, virtue and evil escalate, emblematic figures within a moral tale – which stops the entire production fully becoming immersive.
Stylistic Shifts
Additionally, exist numerous tonally jarring instances in which the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and discern the maid’s destiny becomes nearly laughable. He stands looking at broken milk pots and clumps of hair in hay barns as a fusion of the Belgian detective and Sherlock Holmes – with Jussi a rather hapless assistant figure (neither of whom were required to lick a mixture of blood spatter and the boss’s spit to confirm that indeed, it was clearly coagulated blood on the site), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and extracting a body from a bog.
Opposing Goals
The village elite are determined demonstrating that Hilda was killed by an animal, perhaps to preserve the calm, or possibly to protect one of their own. The pastor is bent on proving the opposite, and the evidence so quickly stacks up supporting his view that again the drama’s plausibility and audience tolerance are tested. At its best, To Cook a Bear is reminiscent of the adaptation a few years ago of the author’s The Essex Serpent, through its portrayal of the competing allures and terrors offered by science and belief. At its worst, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it does seem to offer the answer to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”
To Cook a Bear is on Disney+ currently.
