An intense discussion recently went viral on social media, following a user asked the question for females: would you rather find yourself stranded in a forest with a man or a bear? Like all the best hypothetical scenarios, it revealed vastly opposing perspectives and life encounters, highlighted chasms among genders, and could easily cause an existential crisis for anyone pondering on it extensively. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable coda where men of a certain stripe came online to tell women how foolish they had been for choosing the bear and went on to limn the consequences they merited for it. This at least enabled the women who were uncertain over their choice to make it with renewed assurance.
Dramatising the Scenario
To Cook a Bear skillfully brings to life this clever small premise. The six-part drama is based on Scandinavian writer Mikael Niemi’s 2018 novel of the same name (translated two years later for English readers). It traces the tribulations of a clergyman (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his household when they arrive to begin a fresh religious post within Kengis, a remote village in Sweden’s north, in 1852. In a place with few pleasures, none of the locals particularly warm to his strict stance on drinking and dancing, yet it is his defense of impoverished people – particularly the indigenous Sami, from which hails the pastor’s adopted son the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his belief in social justice and equality that sets him in direct opposition against the Kengis local authorities.
The Antagonists
Soon collaborating opposing him include the lawman the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the fearsome mill owner the matron Sjödahl (the actress), observed early on firing a recently mangled worker with a month’s pay while he is still gibbering upon seeing of his pulped hand, and all others who profit from a populace easily swayed with some containers of liquor provided by the creepy shopkeeper the merchant Lindmark (the actor). However, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes once travelling artist Beronius appears on the scene (Simon J Berger, delivering an acting turn of rare unsettling intensity). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – only a little more being stereotypes, they still serve as potent archetypes.
Narrative Development
With the seeds of tension sown, the moment arrives to get down with the storyline. The servant from the doctor’s house, the character Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), accordingly vanishes in the forest. Indications of her flight and animal scratches on a tree are found but she is completely absent. Gossip and anxieties regarding a human-devouring bear prowling the woods circulate, but the pastor has another theory that he and Jussi embark to verify.
A Strange Creation
This Bear Drama is a slightly peculiar show. It conjures a strong impression of the desolation that lets suspicion and prejudice and grim legends thrive from the native legend that animals might be dominated or possessed by the souls of humans. And it doesn’t idealising the tough existence experienced by the residents, where brutality, be it from the wild or people, lurks constantly at the periphery, poised to explode. Yet the personas seldom evolve beyond symbols – or perhaps, while the conflicts amid fairness and vengeance, rationality and religion, good and wickedness escalate, emblematic figures within a moral tale – which stops the entire production fully coming to life.
Stylistic Shifts
Additionally, exist numerous stylistically clashing instances in which the pastor’s ability to discover clues and determine Hilda’s fate becomes nearly laughable. He positions himself observing broken milk pots and clumps of hair in hay barns as a fusion of the Belgian detective and Sherlock Holmes – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (none of whom were required to lick a blend of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to confirm that, yes, it was clearly coagulated blood on the site), before announcing his newest conclusion and pulling a body out of a swamp.
Clashing Agendas
The local leaders are bent on proving that the maid met her end by a bear, maybe to protect the peace, perhaps to shield one of their own. The pastor is bent on establishing the opposite, and the proof so rapidly accumulates in his favour 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 Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the opposing allures and terrors offered by rational thought and belief. In its low points, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it appears to offer the answer to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”
To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ now.
