An heated debate recently went viral across online platforms, following someone posed the question to women: would you rather find yourself stranded in the woods alongside a male or a bear? Similar to the best thought experiments, it revealed vastly opposing perspectives and experiences, illuminated divides between the sexes, and could easily to induce a deep personal dilemma for anyone pondering on it extensively. There was also the predictable coda where some males came online to tell women how stupid they had been to select the animal and proceeded to limn the consequences they deserved for it. This at minimum enabled the women who had been hesitating over their choice to decide with renewed assurance.
Dramatising the Scenario
To Cook a Bear skillfully dramatises this nifty small premise. This six-episode drama is adapted from Swedish author the novelist’s 2018 novel with the identical title (rendered in 2020 for an English audience). It follows the tribulations of a pastor (the lead actor) and his household as they come to begin a fresh religious post in Kengis, an isolated village in northern Sweden, in 1852. Within a community with few pleasures, not one of the inhabitants especially appreciate his puritanical approach to alcohol and revelry, but it is his protection of the poor – especially the indigenous Sami, from among whom comes the preacher’s adopted son the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in social justice and equality that places him in direct opposition with the Kengis local authorities.
The Antagonists
Soon in cahoots opposing him are the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the fearsome mill owner Madam Sjödahl (the actress), observed initially dismissing a recently mangled worker with a month’s pay as he remains gibbering upon seeing of his pulped hand, and all others who benefit from a community easily swayed with some containers of the whisky provided by the creepy shopkeeper the merchant Lindmark (the actor). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes when travelling artist the artist Beronius arrives in the story (Simon J Berger, providing an acting turn of exceptional discomfiting power). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond than caricatures, they are at least effective ones.
Plot Progression
With the seeds of tension planted, it is time to proceed with the storyline. The maid employed by the doctor, Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), duly goes missing in the forest. Signs of her flight and animal scratches on a tree are found but she is completely absent. Rumours and fears of a man/maid-eating beast roaming the woodland spread, but the pastor holds a different view that he and Jussi embark to verify.
An Odd Beast
This Bear Drama is a somewhat peculiar show. It conjures a fine sense of the bleakness that allows suspicion and prejudice and grim legends flourish based on local folklore that bears might be dominated or inhabited by the spirits of men. It avoids romanticise the tough existence led by the villagers, where brutality, whether that of nature or people, always looms at the periphery, poised to explode. But the characters rarely become more than ciphers – or maybe, while the conflicts amid fairness and vengeance, rationality and faith, good and evil intensify, representative characters within a moral tale – which stops the whole thing truly becoming immersive.
Tonal Inconsistencies
And then, there are the many stylistically clashing instances where the clergyman’s skill to discover clues and determine Hilda’s fate turns nearly laughable. He stands looking at shattered containers and strands of fur in hay barns like a combined Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (neither of whom were required to taste a blend of blood droplets and saliva from his superior to confirm that, yes, it was clearly coagulated blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and extracting a corpse out of a swamp.
Clashing Agendas
The local leaders are bent on demonstrating that Hilda met her end by an animal, perhaps to preserve the peace, perhaps to shield a fellow elite. The pastor is bent on proving the opposite, and the evidence so rapidly accumulates supporting his view that again the show’s credibility and the viewer’s patience are tested. In its finest moments, the series is reminiscent of the TV version a few years ago of the author’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the opposing allures and terrors presented by science and religion. In its low points, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Nevertheless, it appears to offer the answer to that debated question: “Ladies, take the bear.”
The series is on Disney+ currently.
