Abel Ferrara attempts to understand the complexities of man with “Siberia,” a study of interweaving dualities—some complex and challenging, some less so—such as day and night, the tundra and the desert, and, at an astonishingly superficial level, the difference between right and wrong. His philosophical conversations maunder, varying wildly in complexity—yet some moments of “Siberia” capture authentic tragedy, grief, and pathos. Despite these moments, which are genuinely moving, Ferrara’s film is far too disjointed and philosophically wavering to reach the level of quality it sets out to achieve.
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Clint (Willem Dafoe) is a man who lives in a state of self-isolation, both geographically and psychologically. He operates a put-together bar—more of a shack with bottles of liquor on the shelf than a genuine establishment—in a remote region of Siberia. The few human interactions he has are sullied by linguistic barriers, as most of the repeat locals speak no English and Clint knows none of the local languages. It serves to suggest that Clint is a self-imposed lingual loner—one might assume that he would learn them if he cared.
This is not to suggest that Clint is socially inept. He is far from a rude provocateur. He’s welcoming, even warm, and quick to fix his visitors a drink, but the hollow look behind his eyes speaks for more than a conversation possibly could. His loneliness is borne from a series of crises, masculine and otherwise. To begin with, we are led to wonder whether the world in which Clint inhabits is real; surreal moments are peppered throughout the first twenty minutes before the film takes a fuller dive into the abstract.
Ferrara presents a combination of disparate, ghostly visions, a surreal sequence of hallucinations, and dreams. With these, Clint takes us on a journey through his greatest guilts, fears, and desires—only some of which are successfully realized. These are often part of the film’s major successes, even if they are few and far between. One of the frustrations is its strength in the edit, which is more indicative of the cinematic fluency we might typically expect of Ferrara. Whereas, many other technical aspects are so below par. The film’s dialogue, for example, is laughably stunted, which is startling for a filmmaker of his acumen.
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Dafoe puts in a good performance as Clint. His character requires a great range of physicality—his body seems to crumple as the film’s runtime ticks on, alongside his psyche—which Dafoe compounds with his trademark strength of emotional acuity. It’s very brick-and-mortar work compared to his recent outings in “The Lighthouse” and his Academy Award-nominated turn in “The Florida Project,” but he does the job effectively enough. You might wish for more out of such a personal portrait, wherein we spend the vast majority of screentime in one character’s presence. But it’s clear that Dafoe did the best with what he’s given, and he’s far more solution than problem in “Siberia.”
Clint is haunted by not only personal, familial ghosts—one of his most significant guilts lies within his apparently troubled relationship with his father—but also those of humanity’s violent history. The latter is, sadly, too often disjointed and makes no real sense. In one scene, Clint bears witness to a graphic mass execution in a cave, apparently by the hands of Nazis. You’re left wondering what Ferrara is trying to communicate—he’s clearly trying to establish a broader thesis on the depravity of man, but these loftier existential conceits wane in comparison to those challenging personal loss and grief. Man’s descent, you want to remind him, needn’t always be universal.
Perhaps the film’s greatest success, and that which generates the most significant level of pathos, is its consistent focus on Clint’s struggle with paternity—his dual guilts as both absentee father and absconded son. In one early scene, a pregnant woman and her grandmother visit Clint’s bar. She opens her jacket to reveal her nude body, and Clint, prone, caresses and kisses her pregnant stomach. It’s undoubtedly a jarring moment—Ferrara’s lens feels unintentionally voyeuristic—but serves to cement Clint’s fear of fatherhood. Perhaps of responsibility.
The key conflict of “Siberia” lies between the tensions of self-imposed isolation and the guilt of being absent. It’s quite clear that the ghosts which haunt Clint are torturing him for absconding. He fantasizes about sex with a woman towards the film’s climax; a momentary cut away, and she has transformed into Clint’s mother. It’s a surprisingly moving moment, despite the fact that she is straddling her naked son. This is, perhaps, Dafoe’s strongest moment. He carries what should be a far more problematic scene over the line with his convincing commitment and sincerity.
What we have, then, is an altogether frustrating film—a war between two disparate narratives, of which Ferrara never makes a convincing enough attempt to meld. It’s frustrating because there’s a great film here—a nuanced, cleverly abstract exploration of the grief born out of, and inherent to, solitude. But as it stands, “Siberia” juggles a number of intriguing ideas without any real success at marrying them. It’s an enjoyable watch, if only for the confident surrealism, albeit one which could inspire confusion and/or disgust in many film fans. [C+]
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