A intense debate lately spread widely across online platforms, after a user asked a query for females: would you rather find yourself stranded in the woods with a man or with a bear? Similar to the best hypothetical scenarios, it revealed wildly different worldviews and experiences, highlighted divides between the sexes, and could easily to induce a deep personal dilemma for anyone pondering about it extensively. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable coda in which men of a certain stripe took to the internet to tell women how stupid they were for choosing the bear and went on to limn the consequences they deserved for it. This at minimum enabled those females who were uncertain over their choice to decide with a new confidence.
Portraying the Scenario
To Cook a Bear skillfully brings to life this nifty small premise. The six-part series is based on Swedish author the novelist’s 2018 book with the identical title (rendered in 2020 for an English audience). It follows the tribulations of a clergyman (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his household as they come to begin a new ministry within Kengis, an isolated village in Sweden’s north, in 1852. Within a community with few pleasures, not one of the inhabitants particularly appreciate his strict approach to drinking and dancing, but it is his protection of the poor – particularly the native Sami population, from among whom comes the preacher’s adopted son Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in societal fairness and equal rights that places him on a collision course with the Kengis powers that be.
The Antagonists
Soon in cahoots opposing him include the lawman Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (the actress), observed initially dismissing a recently mangled laborer with a month’s pay as he remains babbling upon seeing his crushed hand, and all others who benefit from a populace who can be bought for a few bottles of liquor sold by the unsettling store owner the merchant Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). However, to be fair, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes once itinerant painter Beronius arrives in the story (the performer, providing a performance of rare discomfiting power). While they remain – like the pastor himself – just slightly beyond than caricatures, they still serve as potent archetypes.
Plot Progression
Once the foundations of tension planted, it is time to proceed to narrative business. The maid from the doctor’s house, the character Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), accordingly vanishes from the woods. Signs of her flight and bear markings on a tree are found but she is nowhere to be seen. Rumours and fears regarding a human-devouring beast prowling the woods circulate, yet the clergyman holds a different view that he and Jussi set out to verify.
A Strange Creation
To Cook a Bear is a somewhat peculiar show. It creates a strong impression of the desolation that allows distrust and bias and dark myths flourish from the native legend that animals can be controlled or possessed by the souls of men. And it doesn’t romanticise the hardscrabble life led by the villagers, in which violence, whether that of the wild or mankind, always looms at the periphery, poised to explode. Yet the personas rarely become beyond symbols – or perhaps, as the struggles amid fairness and revenge, rationality and faith, good and wickedness escalate, representative characters in a fable – preventing the entire production truly coming to life.
Stylistic Shifts
And then, exist the many stylistically clashing moments where the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and discern the maid’s destiny turns nearly laughable. He positions himself observing shattered containers and strands of fur within storage sheds like a combined the Belgian detective and Sherlock Holmes – alongside Jussi a rather hapless Hastings-cum-Watson (none of whom had to lick a mixture of blood droplets and saliva from his superior to agree that indeed, it was definitely coagulated blood on the site), before announcing his latest deduction and extracting a corpse from a bog.
Clashing Agendas
The local leaders are determined proving that Hilda met her end by a bear, maybe to preserve the peace, perhaps to protect one of their own. The clergyman is bent on proving otherwise, and the evidence so quickly accumulates in his favour that again the show’s credibility and the viewer’s patience are tested. In its finest moments, To Cook a Bear evokes memories of the TV version some years back of Sarah Perry’s The Essex Serpent, through its portrayal of the opposing allures and terrors presented by science and religion. At its worst, it’s more like Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Nevertheless, it does seem to provide the response to that debated question: “Ladies, take the bear.”
The series streams on Disney+ currently.
