An heated discussion recently spread widely across online platforms, following someone asked a query for females: would you rather be lost in the woods alongside a male or with a bear? Like all the most engaging hypothetical scenarios, it exposed vastly opposing perspectives and experiences, illuminated divides among genders, and was likely cause an existential crisis if you thought on it for too long. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable follow-up in which men of a certain stripe came online to tell females how stupid they had been for choosing the animal and went on to describe the punishments they merited for it. This at minimum allowed those females who were uncertain about their decision to make it with a new confidence.
Portraying the Scenario
To Cook a Bear skillfully brings to life this nifty little setup. This six-episode drama is based from Scandinavian writer the novelist’s 2018 novel with the identical title (rendered two years later for an English audience). It traces the struggles of a pastor (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his household when they arrive to start a fresh religious post within Kengis, a remote settlement in northern Sweden, in 1852. Within a community lacking many joys, not one of the inhabitants especially appreciate his strict approach to drinking and revelry, but it is his protection of impoverished people – particularly the native Sami population, from among whom hails the preacher’s adopted son the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in social justice and equal rights that sets him on a collision course against the Kengis local authorities.
The Antagonists
Soon collaborating against him include the lawman the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the fearsome factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen initially firing a recently mangled worker with a month’s pay while he is still gibbering upon seeing of his pulped hand, and anyone else who benefit from a community easily swayed with some containers of the whisky sold by the creepy shopkeeper Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). However, to be fair, Lindmark’s creepiness pales when travelling artist Beronius appears on the scene (the performer, providing a performance of exceptional unsettling intensity). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, they are at least effective ones.
Plot Progression
With the seeds of conflict planted, it is time to proceed to narrative business. The maid employed by the doctor, Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), accordingly goes missing from the woods. Indications of her escape and animal scratches on a tree get discovered but she is nowhere to be seen. Gossip and anxieties of a man/maid-eating beast prowling the woodland circulate, but the pastor has another theory that he and Jussi embark to verify.
An Odd Beast
To Cook a Bear is a somewhat odd beast. It conjures a strong impression of the bleakness that lets suspicion and prejudice and grim legends thrive from the native legend that animals might be dominated or possessed by the spirits of men. And it doesn’t idealising the tough existence led by the villagers, in which brutality, whether that of nature or mankind, lurks constantly at the periphery, poised to explode. Yet the personas rarely become more than ciphers – or maybe, while the conflicts amid fairness and revenge, rationality and religion, good and wickedness intensify, representative characters in a fable – preventing the entire production truly coming to life.
Tonal Inconsistencies
Additionally, exist numerous stylistically clashing moments where the pastor’s ability to discover clues and determine the maid’s destiny becomes nearly laughable. He stands looking at broken milk pots and strands of fur within storage sheds as a fusion of Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – alongside Jussi a rather hapless assistant figure (none of whom were required to lick a blend of blood spatter and the boss’s spit to confirm that, yes, it was definitely coagulated blood on the site), prior to declaring his latest deduction and extracting a body out of a swamp.
Opposing Goals
The local leaders are determined demonstrating that the maid met her end by an animal, maybe to preserve the calm, or possibly to protect one of their own. The pastor is intent on proving the opposite, and the proof so quickly accumulates supporting his view that again the show’s credibility and audience tolerance are tested. At its best, To Cook a Bear is reminiscent of the adaptation some years back of the author’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the competing allures and terrors presented by rational thought and belief. In its low points, it’s more like a bear-themed police procedural. Nevertheless, it does seem to provide the response to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”
To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ now.
