An heated debate recently spread widely on social media, after someone asked the question for females: which would you prefer find yourself stranded in a forest with a man or a bear? Similar to the most engaging thought experiments, it exposed wildly different perspectives and life encounters, illuminated chasms between the sexes, and could easily cause a deep personal dilemma for anyone pondering about it extensively. There was also the almost inevitable follow-up where men of a certain stripe took to the internet to tell females how foolish they had been to select the animal and proceeded to describe the consequences they merited for it. This at least allowed those females who had been hesitating about their decision to decide with renewed assurance.
Dramatising the Setup
To Cook a Bear effectively dramatises this clever little setup. This six-episode drama is based from Scandinavian writer the novelist’s 2018 novel of the same name (rendered in 2020 for an English audience). It traces the struggles of a pastor (the lead actor) and his household as they come to start a fresh religious post within Kengis, an isolated settlement in northern Sweden, in 1852. Within a community lacking many joys, none of the inhabitants particularly appreciate his puritanical approach to alcohol and dancing, but it is his defense of impoverished people – particularly the native Sami population, from among whom hails the pastor’s adopted son Jussi (the young actor) – and his conviction in social justice and equality that places him on a collision course with the Kengis local authorities.
The Antagonists
Quickly collaborating against him are the lawman Brahe (the performer), the fearsome factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (the actress), seen early on firing a newly injured laborer with minimal compensation as he remains gibbering upon seeing his crushed hand, and anyone else who profit from a community easily swayed with some containers of liquor provided by the unsettling shopkeeper Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes when travelling artist the artist Beronius appears on the scene (the performer, providing an acting turn of rare unsettling intensity). If they are – similar to the clergyman – only a little more than caricatures, they still serve as effective ones.
Narrative Development
With the seeds of conflict planted, 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 flight and animal scratches on a tree get discovered yet she remains completely absent. Gossip and anxieties of a man/maid-eating bear roaming the woods spread, yet the clergyman holds a different view which he and his ward embark to prove.
A Strange Creation
This Bear Drama is a somewhat peculiar show. It creates a strong impression of the bleakness that allows suspicion and bias and dark myths thrive based on local folklore that bears might be dominated or inhabited by the spirits of men. It avoids romanticise the tough existence experienced by the villagers, where brutality, whether that of the wild or people, always looms at the periphery, poised to explode. But the characters rarely become beyond symbols – or maybe, while the conflicts amid fairness and revenge, logic and faith, good and evil escalate, emblematic figures in a fable – which stops the whole thing truly coming to life.
Tonal Inconsistencies
Additionally, there are numerous tonally jarring instances where the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and discern the maid’s destiny turns almost risible. He stands looking at broken milk pots and clumps of hair in hay barns as a fusion of the Belgian detective the English sleuth – with Jussi a rather hapless assistant figure (none of whom were required to lick a mixture of blood spatter and the boss’s spit to agree that indeed, it was clearly dried blood on the site), before announcing his latest deduction and pulling a body out of a swamp.
Opposing Goals
The local leaders are determined demonstrating that the maid met her end by an animal, perhaps to preserve the calm, or possibly to protect one of their own. The clergyman is bent on proving the opposite, and the evidence so quickly accumulates in his favour that once more the drama’s plausibility and audience tolerance get strained. At its best, the series evokes memories of the TV version a few years ago of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the competing attractions and terrors offered by science and belief. In its low points, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it does seem to provide the response to that debated question: “Ladies, take the bear.”
The series streams on Disney+ currently.
