A heated discussion recently spread widely on social media, after someone asked the question to women: which would you prefer find yourself stranded in a forest alongside a male or with a bear? Like all the best hypothetical scenarios, it revealed vastly opposing perspectives and life encounters, highlighted divides among genders, and was likely cause an existential crisis if you thought about it for too long. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable coda where men of a certain stripe took to the internet to tell females how foolish they had been for choosing the bear and went on to describe the consequences they merited for it. This at minimum enabled those females who were uncertain over their choice to decide with a new confidence.
Dramatising the Setup
To Cook a Bear skillfully dramatises this nifty little setup. This six-episode drama is adapted on Swedish author the novelist’s 2018 novel of the same name (rendered in 2020 for English readers). It traces the tribulations of a pastor (the lead actor) and his family as they come to begin a new ministry in Kengis, a remote village in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. In a place with few pleasures, not one of the inhabitants especially appreciate his strict approach to drinking and dancing, but it is his defense of impoverished people – especially the native Sami population, from which hails the pastor’s adopted son Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in societal fairness and equal rights that places him in direct opposition against the Kengis local authorities.
The Antagonists
Soon collaborating opposing him are the lawman Brahe (the performer), the fearsome mill owner the matron Sjödahl (the actress), seen initially dismissing a recently mangled worker with a month’s pay while he is still gibbering at the sight of his pulped hand, and anyone else who benefit from a populace easily swayed with some containers of liquor sold by the unsettling shopkeeper Lindmark (the actor). Although, to be fair, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes once travelling artist the artist Beronius arrives in the story (the performer, providing a performance of rare discomfiting power). While they remain – like the pastor himself – only a little more being stereotypes, they are at least effective ones.
Narrative Development
With the seeds of conflict sown, the moment arrives to get down to narrative business. The servant from the doctor’s house, the character Hilda (the actress), accordingly goes missing from the woods. Indications of her escape and animal scratches upon a trunk are found but she is nowhere to be seen. Rumours and anxieties regarding a human-devouring beast prowling the woodland spread, yet the clergyman has another theory which he and his ward embark to prove.
An Odd Beast
This Bear Drama is a somewhat odd beast. It creates a strong impression of the desolation that allows distrust and prejudice and dark myths flourish based on local folklore that bears can be controlled or possessed by the souls of humans. It avoids idealising the hardscrabble life led by the villagers, where violence, be it from the wild or people, lurks constantly at the periphery, poised to explode. But the characters seldom evolve beyond symbols – or perhaps, while the conflicts between justice and revenge, rationality and religion, virtue and wickedness intensify, emblematic figures in a fable – preventing the whole thing fully becoming immersive.
Tonal Inconsistencies
And then, there are numerous tonally jarring moments where the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and determine the maid’s destiny turns almost risible. He positions himself observing broken milk pots and strands of fur within storage sheds as a fusion of Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (none of whom had to taste a blend of blood spatter and the boss’s spit to confirm that indeed, it was definitely dried blood at the crime scene), before announcing his newest conclusion and extracting a body from a bog.
Clashing Agendas
The local leaders are determined proving that the maid was killed by an animal, perhaps to protect the peace, perhaps to shield one of their own. The pastor is bent on proving the opposite, and the proof so quickly accumulates in his favour that again the drama’s plausibility and the viewer’s patience are tested. At its best, the series 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 terrors presented by science and belief. At its worst, it resembles a bear-themed police procedural. Nevertheless, it does seem to offer the answer to that debated question: “Ladies, take the bear.”
To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ currently.
