A heated debate recently spread widely on social media, after a user asked a query to women: would you rather be lost in the woods alongside a male or a bear? Similar to the best hypothetical scenarios, it exposed vastly opposing worldviews and experiences, illuminated chasms among genders, and could easily to induce a deep personal dilemma for anyone pondering about it extensively. There was also the almost inevitable coda where men of a certain stripe came online to tell females how foolish they were to select the animal and proceeded to describe the punishments they merited for that choice. This at minimum allowed the women who had been hesitating over their choice to make it with a new confidence.
Dramatising the Setup
To Cook a Bear effectively brings to life this nifty small premise. The six-part drama is based from Scandinavian writer the novelist’s 2018 novel with the identical title (rendered in 2020 for an English audience). It follows the struggles of a pastor (the lead actor) and his household as they come to begin a fresh religious post in Kengis, an isolated village in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. In a place lacking many joys, none of the inhabitants particularly appreciate his puritanical stance on drinking and dancing, but it is his protection of the poor – particularly the native Sami population, from which comes the preacher’s foster child the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his conviction in social justice and equality that places him on a collision course against the Kengis local authorities.
The Opposing Forces
Quickly in cahoots against him are the lawman the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the fearsome mill owner Madam Sjödahl (the actress), seen early on firing a recently mangled laborer with a month’s pay as he remains gibbering at the sight of his pulped hand, and anyone else who benefit from a populace who can be bought with some containers of the whisky sold by the creepy store owner the merchant Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes when travelling artist the artist Beronius appears in the story (the performer, delivering a performance of exceptional discomfiting power). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond than caricatures, they still serve as effective ones.
Narrative Development
With the seeds of conflict sown, it is time to get down to narrative business. The servant from the doctor’s house, the character Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), duly vanishes in the forest. Signs of her escape and animal scratches on a tree get discovered but she is completely absent. Gossip and anxieties of a man/maid-eating beast roaming the woodland circulate, yet the clergyman has another theory that he and Jussi embark to prove.
An Odd Beast
This Bear Drama is a slightly odd beast. It creates a strong impression of the bleakness that allows distrust and prejudice and grim legends flourish from the native legend that animals might be dominated or inhabited by the spirits of men. It avoids romanticise the hardscrabble life led by the villagers, in which violence, be it from nature or mankind, lurks constantly on the edges, waiting to erupt. But the characters rarely become more than ciphers – or perhaps, while the conflicts amid fairness and revenge, logic and faith, virtue and wickedness intensify, emblematic figures within a moral tale – which stops the entire production fully becoming immersive.
Tonal Inconsistencies
And then, exist the many tonally jarring moments where the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and discern the maid’s destiny becomes nearly laughable. He positions himself observing broken milk pots and clumps of hair within storage sheds like a combined the Belgian detective and Sherlock Holmes – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (none of whom were required to taste a blend of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to agree that indeed, it was clearly dried blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and extracting a corpse from a bog.
Clashing Agendas
The village elite are bent on proving that Hilda was killed by an animal, perhaps to protect the calm, perhaps to shield a fellow elite. The clergyman is bent on establishing the opposite, and the evidence so rapidly 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 some years back of Sarah Perry’s The Essex Serpent, with its evocation of the competing allures and terrors offered by rational thought and religion. At its worst, it’s more like a bear-themed police procedural. Nevertheless, it appears to offer the response to the earlier query: “Females, choose the animal.”
The series is on Disney+ currently.
