An intense discussion lately went viral on social media, following a user asked the question for females: would you rather be lost in the woods alongside a male or a bear? Like all the best hypothetical scenarios, it exposed wildly different worldviews and life encounters, highlighted divides among genders, and could easily to induce a deep personal dilemma if you thought about it for too long. There was also the predictable follow-up in which men of a certain stripe took to the internet to tell females how foolish they were to select the bear and went on to limn the consequences they merited for that choice. This at minimum allowed the women who were uncertain about their decision to make it with renewed assurance.
Dramatising the Scenario
To Cook a Bear effectively dramatises this nifty small premise. The six-part drama is adapted from Scandinavian writer Mikael Niemi’s 2018 book with the identical title (rendered in 2020 for an English audience). It follows the struggles of a clergyman (the lead actor) and his family when they arrive to start a new ministry in Kengis, a remote village in Sweden’s north, during the mid-19th century. Within a community with few pleasures, none of the inhabitants particularly warm to his puritanical stance on drinking and revelry, but it is his protection of impoverished people – especially the native Sami population, from among whom hails the pastor’s adopted son the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his conviction in societal fairness and equality that sets him on a collision course against the Kengis powers that be.
The Antagonists
Quickly collaborating opposing him include the lawman the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the intimidating factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (the actress), seen initially dismissing a recently mangled worker with minimal compensation as he remains gibbering upon seeing his crushed hand, and anyone else who profit from a community easily swayed for a few bottles of the whisky sold by the unsettling store owner the merchant Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes once travelling artist Beronius appears in the story (Simon J Berger, delivering a performance of exceptional discomfiting power). While they remain – like the pastor himself – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, they still serve as effective ones.
Narrative Development
Once the foundations of conflict sown, it is time to proceed to narrative business. The maid from the doctor’s house, the character Hilda (the actress), duly vanishes in the forest. Signs of her flight and bear markings on a tree get discovered yet she remains completely absent. Rumours and fears regarding a human-devouring bear roaming the woodland spread, yet the clergyman holds a different view that he and Jussi set out to prove.
An Odd Beast
This Bear Drama is a somewhat odd beast. It conjures a fine sense of the bleakness that allows distrust and bias and dark myths flourish from the native legend that bears can be controlled or possessed by the spirits of humans. And it doesn’t romanticise the tough existence experienced by the residents, where violence, be it from the wild or mankind, lurks constantly at the periphery, poised to explode. Yet the personas seldom evolve more than ciphers – or perhaps, as the struggles amid fairness and revenge, logic and faith, virtue and wickedness escalate, emblematic figures in a fable – which stops the entire production fully coming to life.
Stylistic Shifts
Additionally, there are the many tonally jarring moments where the pastor’s ability to discover clues and discern Hilda’s fate turns nearly laughable. He positions himself observing broken milk pots and clumps of hair within storage sheds like a combined Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (none of whom were required to taste a blend of blood droplets 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 from a bog.
Opposing Goals
The local leaders are bent on proving that Hilda met her end by a bear, maybe to protect the calm, perhaps to protect one of their own. The clergyman is intent on proving otherwise, and the evidence so rapidly accumulates supporting his view that once more the drama’s plausibility and the viewer’s patience are tested. In its finest moments, the series is reminiscent of the TV version some years back of the author’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the opposing allures and terrors presented by science and belief. At its worst, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it appears to provide the answer to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”
To Cook a Bear is on Disney+ currently.
