🔗 Share this article

A intense debate lately went viral on social media, following someone asked the question for females: which would you prefer be lost in a forest with a man or with a bear? Like all the best hypothetical scenarios, it revealed vastly opposing worldviews and life encounters, illuminated chasms between the sexes, and was likely to induce a deep personal dilemma for anyone pondering about it for too long. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable coda where some males came online to inform females how foolish they were to select the bear and proceeded to limn the consequences they merited for that choice. This at least allowed those females who had been hesitating about their decision to make it with a new confidence.

Dramatising the Setup

To Cook a Bear skillfully dramatises this clever little setup. This six-episode series is adapted from Scandinavian writer the novelist’s 2018 novel with the identical title (rendered two years later for English readers). It follows the struggles of a pastor (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his family when they arrive to begin a new ministry within Kengis, a remote settlement in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. Within a community lacking many joys, not one of the locals particularly appreciate his strict stance on drinking and dancing, but it is his protection of impoverished people – especially the indigenous Sami, from which hails the preacher’s adopted son Jussi (the young actor) – and his conviction in societal fairness and equality that sets him on a collision course against the Kengis local authorities.

The Antagonists

Soon collaborating opposing him include the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (the actress), observed early on firing a recently mangled worker with a month’s pay as he remains gibbering upon seeing of his pulped hand, and anyone else who profit from a populace easily swayed with some containers of the whisky sold by the unsettling shopkeeper the merchant Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, to be fair, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes once itinerant painter the artist Beronius appears on the scene (the performer, providing an acting turn of exceptional unsettling intensity). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond than caricatures, they still serve as effective ones.

Plot Progression

With the seeds of tension planted, it is time to get down to narrative business. The maid employed by the doctor, Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), accordingly goes missing in the forest. Indications of her flight and bear markings on a tree are found yet she remains completely absent. Rumours and fears regarding a human-devouring bear roaming the woods circulate, yet the clergyman has another theory which he and his ward set out to verify.

An Odd Beast

This Bear Drama is a slightly peculiar show. It creates a strong impression of the bleakness that allows suspicion and bias and grim legends thrive based on local folklore that animals might be dominated or possessed by the spirits of men. It avoids romanticise the hardscrabble life led by the villagers, in which brutality, whether that of nature or mankind, always looms at the periphery, waiting to erupt. But the characters rarely become beyond symbols – or maybe, as the struggles amid fairness and revenge, logic and religion, virtue and wickedness intensify, emblematic figures within a moral tale – which stops the entire production fully coming to life.

Stylistic Shifts

Additionally, there are the many stylistically clashing instances in which the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and determine the maid’s destiny becomes almost risible. He positions himself observing shattered containers and clumps of hair in hay barns as a fusion of the Belgian detective the English sleuth – with Jussi a rather hapless Hastings-cum-Watson (neither of whom were required to lick a blend of blood droplets and saliva from his superior to agree that indeed, it was clearly dried blood at the crime scene), before announcing his latest deduction and extracting a body from a bog.

Opposing Goals

The local leaders are determined proving that the maid was killed by a bear, maybe to protect the peace, perhaps to protect one of their own. The clergyman is intent on proving otherwise, and the proof so rapidly stacks up supporting his view that again the show’s credibility and the viewer’s patience get strained. In its finest moments, the series evokes memories of the adaptation a few years ago of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the opposing attractions and fears offered by rational thought and belief. In its low points, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Nevertheless, it appears to provide the answer to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”

• The series streams on Disney+ currently.