An heated debate recently went viral on social media, following someone asked the question to women: would you rather be lost in a forest alongside a male or a bear? Like all the best hypothetical scenarios, it exposed wildly different perspectives and experiences, highlighted divides between the sexes, and was likely cause a deep personal dilemma for anyone pondering on it for too long. There was also the predictable follow-up in which some males came online to tell females how foolish they had been to select the bear and went on to describe the consequences they deserved for it. This at least allowed those females who had been hesitating over their choice to make it with a new confidence.
Portraying the Scenario
To Cook a Bear effectively dramatises this nifty small premise. The six-part drama is based on Swedish author the novelist’s 2018 book of the same name (translated two years later for an English audience). It follows 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 Sweden’s north, in 1852. Within a community lacking many joys, none of the inhabitants particularly warm to his strict approach to alcohol and revelry, but it is his defense of impoverished people – particularly the native Sami population, from which comes the pastor’s adopted son the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his conviction in social justice and equality that places him on a collision course against the Kengis powers that be.
The Opposing Forces
Quickly in cahoots against him are the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the fearsome factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed initially dismissing a recently mangled laborer with minimal compensation as he remains gibbering upon seeing of his pulped hand, and anyone else who benefit from a populace easily swayed for a few bottles of the whisky provided by the creepy shopkeeper Lindmark (the actor). However, to be fair, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes once travelling artist the artist Beronius appears on the scene (the performer, delivering a performance of exceptional discomfiting power). If they are – similar to the clergyman – only a little more than caricatures, they are at least effective ones.
Plot Progression
With the seeds of tension planted, it is time to get down to narrative business. The servant from the doctor’s house, Hilda (the actress), duly goes missing in the forest. Indications of her flight and bear markings on a tree are found yet she remains nowhere to be seen. Rumours and fears regarding a human-devouring bear roaming the woods spread, yet the clergyman has another theory which he and his ward set out to prove.
A Strange Creation
This Bear Drama is a somewhat peculiar show. It conjures a strong impression of the desolation that lets distrust and prejudice and grim legends flourish based on local folklore that bears might be dominated or possessed by the spirits of men. It avoids romanticise the tough existence led by the villagers, in which brutality, be it from nature or mankind, always looms on the edges, poised to explode. Yet the personas rarely become more than ciphers – or perhaps, as the struggles amid fairness and revenge, rationality and religion, virtue and wickedness escalate, emblematic figures in a fable – preventing the entire production truly coming to life.
Tonal Inconsistencies
Additionally, exist numerous tonally jarring instances in which the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and determine Hilda’s fate turns almost risible. He positions himself observing shattered containers and strands of fur in hay barns as a fusion of Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (neither of whom had to taste a mixture of blood droplets and saliva from his superior to confirm that indeed, it was clearly dried blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and pulling a body from a bog.
Clashing Agendas
The local leaders are determined proving that Hilda was killed by an animal, maybe to protect the peace, or possibly to shield one of their own. The pastor is bent on establishing otherwise, and the proof so quickly stacks up in his favour that once more the drama’s plausibility and audience tolerance get strained. In its finest moments, the series evokes memories of the TV version some years back of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the opposing attractions and terrors presented by rational thought and belief. At its worst, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Nevertheless, it does seem to provide the response to that debated question: “Females, choose the animal.”
The series is on Disney+ now.
