A intense discussion lately spread widely on social media, after a user asked a query to women: would you rather be lost in the woods with a man or with a bear? Like all the most engaging thought experiments, it revealed vastly opposing perspectives and experiences, illuminated divides among genders, and was likely cause an existential crisis if you thought on it extensively. Additionally, there came the predictable follow-up in which some males took to the internet to inform women how stupid they were to select the bear and went on to describe the consequences they deserved for it. This at minimum enabled those females who were uncertain over their choice to make it with renewed assurance.
Dramatising the Setup
To Cook a Bear effectively brings to life this nifty small premise. The six-part series is adapted on Scandinavian writer the novelist’s 2018 novel with the identical title (translated in 2020 for English readers). It traces the struggles of a pastor (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his family when they arrive to begin a new ministry in Kengis, a remote settlement in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. In a place lacking many joys, not one of the inhabitants especially appreciate his puritanical approach to alcohol and revelry, yet it is his defense of the poor – especially the indigenous Sami, from among whom comes the pastor’s adopted son Jussi (the young actor) – and his conviction in societal fairness and equality that sets him on a collision course with the Kengis local authorities.
The Antagonists
Quickly in cahoots against him are the lawman Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (the actress), observed initially firing a newly injured laborer with a month’s pay as he remains babbling upon seeing of his pulped hand, and anyone else who profit from a community easily swayed with some containers of liquor provided by the creepy shopkeeper Lindmark (the actor). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes once itinerant painter the artist Beronius appears in the story (Simon J Berger, delivering an acting turn of rare discomfiting power). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, they are at least effective ones.
Plot Progression
With the seeds of tension sown, the moment arrives to get down with the storyline. The servant employed by the doctor, the character Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), duly goes missing from the woods. Signs of her escape and bear markings on a tree get discovered yet she remains nowhere to be seen. Gossip and anxieties of a man/maid-eating bear prowling the woods spread, but the pastor holds a different view which he and his ward set out to prove.
An Odd Beast
To Cook a Bear is a slightly odd beast. It creates a fine sense of the desolation that allows suspicion and prejudice and dark myths thrive from the native legend that animals can be controlled or possessed by the souls of humans. It avoids romanticise the tough existence led by the villagers, in which brutality, be it from the wild or people, always looms on the edges, waiting to erupt. But the characters rarely become more than ciphers – or perhaps, while the conflicts between justice and vengeance, rationality and religion, virtue and evil intensify, emblematic figures within a moral tale – which stops the whole thing truly coming to life.
Stylistic Shifts
And then, exist the many stylistically clashing instances where the pastor’s ability to discover clues and discern Hilda’s fate turns almost risible. He positions himself observing shattered containers and clumps of hair within storage sheds as a fusion of Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – with Jussi a rather hapless Hastings-cum-Watson (neither of whom had to taste a blend of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to agree that, yes, it was definitely coagulated blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and extracting a body from a bog.
Opposing Goals
The local leaders are determined proving that Hilda met her end by an animal, perhaps to protect the calm, or possibly to protect one of their own. The pastor is intent on establishing the opposite, and the evidence so rapidly stacks up supporting his view 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 the author’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the opposing allures and fears offered by rational thought and religion. At its worst, it resembles a bear-themed police procedural. Still, it appears to provide the answer to that debated question: “Females, choose the animal.”
The series streams on Disney+ now.
