A intense debate recently went viral on social media, following a user posed the question to women: which would you prefer find yourself stranded in the woods with a man or a bear? Like all the most engaging hypothetical scenarios, it revealed vastly opposing perspectives and life encounters, illuminated divides among genders, and was likely cause a deep personal dilemma for anyone pondering about it for too long. Additionally, there came the predictable follow-up where men of a certain stripe took to the internet to tell females how stupid they had been for choosing the animal and went on to describe the punishments they deserved for that choice. This at minimum enabled those females who had been hesitating over their choice to decide with a new confidence.
Portraying the Setup
To Cook a Bear skillfully brings to life this clever little setup. The six-part drama is adapted from Swedish author the novelist’s 2018 book of the same name (translated in 2020 for English readers). It follows the struggles of a pastor (the lead actor) and his household as they come to start a new ministry in Kengis, an isolated village in Sweden’s north, during the mid-19th century. In a place lacking many joys, none of the inhabitants particularly warm to his strict stance on alcohol and revelry, but it is his defense of the poor – particularly the native Sami population, from among whom hails the pastor’s adopted son Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his belief in social justice and equal rights that sets him in direct opposition with the Kengis powers that be.
The Opposing Forces
Quickly in cahoots against him are the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen early on firing a recently mangled worker with a month’s pay while he is still babbling at the sight of his pulped hand, and anyone else who profit from a community easily swayed with some containers of the whisky sold by the unsettling shopkeeper Lindmark (the actor). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes once itinerant painter the artist Beronius arrives on the scene (the performer, delivering a performance of rare unsettling intensity). If they are – similar to the clergyman – only a little more being stereotypes, 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 employed by the doctor, the character Hilda (the actress), duly goes missing from the woods. Signs of her escape and animal scratches on a tree are found but she is nowhere to be seen. Gossip and anxieties regarding a human-devouring beast roaming the woods spread, but the pastor holds a different view that he and Jussi embark to prove.
A Strange Creation
To Cook a Bear is a slightly odd beast. It conjures a fine sense of the desolation that allows distrust and prejudice and grim legends flourish based on local folklore that animals might be dominated or possessed by the souls of men. It avoids romanticise the hardscrabble life experienced by the villagers, where brutality, whether that of nature or people, always looms on the edges, poised to explode. Yet the personas seldom evolve more than ciphers – or perhaps, as the struggles between justice and vengeance, logic and faith, virtue and evil intensify, representative characters within a moral tale – preventing the entire production fully becoming immersive.
Stylistic Shifts
Additionally, exist numerous tonally jarring instances in which the pastor’s ability to discover clues and discern Hilda’s fate turns nearly laughable. He stands observing shattered containers and strands of fur within storage sheds as a fusion of the Belgian detective the English sleuth – alongside Jussi a rather hapless Hastings-cum-Watson (neither of whom had to taste a blend of blood spatter and the boss’s spit to agree that indeed, it was definitely coagulated blood on the site), before announcing his newest conclusion and pulling a body out of a swamp.
Clashing Agendas
The local leaders are determined demonstrating that the maid met her end by an animal, maybe to preserve the peace, or possibly to protect a fellow elite. The pastor is intent on proving the opposite, and the proof so quickly accumulates in his favour that again the drama’s plausibility and the viewer’s patience get strained. In its finest moments, To Cook a Bear evokes memories of the TV version a few years ago of the author’s The Essex Serpent, through its portrayal of the opposing allures and terrors offered by science and religion. In its low points, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it does seem to offer the response to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”
To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ currently.
