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SIBERIA (2021)
Director: Abel Ferrara Cast: Willem Dafoe, Dounia Sichov, Simon McBurney, Cristina Chiriac, Daniel Giménez Cacho, Fabio Pagano, Anna Ferrara, Phil Nelson, Laurent Arnatsiaq, Valentina Rozumenko, Trish Osmond MPAA
Rating: Running Time: 1:32 Release Date: 6/18/21 (limited; digital & on-demand) |
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Review by Mark Dujsik | June 17, 2021 Whether Clint (Willem Dafoe) is dead or dreaming or somehow actually living everything that happens in Siberia is irrelevant. The man lives alone in the frozen wilderness, or maybe he's just a traveler, like so many who come to the bar where we first see him working. At one point, he tells a reflected version of himself that he "started a journey in this place," which also ended here. Clint is also mauled by a bear and is perfectly fine in the next scene. Maybe what he does as a job or a passion is also irrelevant. This movie, co-written and directed by Abel Ferrara, doesn't care about such minor details as the occupation of its main character, his goal within some kind of plot, or whether he's alive and dreaming or dead and stuck in some kind of limbo. The whole thing is simply an experience, taking us from one seemingly mundane event to another, as Clint wanders the wild and his memories (We have to assume they're memories, at least), looking for meaning or something within the grand scheme of whatever life he has now and may have had in the past. Ferrara's approach to this story, co-written with Christ Zois, is both fascinating and frustrating, with the latter quality mainly winning out in the end. The tale follows a kind of dream logic, in that each scene smashes into the next. Sometimes the transitions make sense (when one visitor at Clint's bar suddenly becomes his pregnant partner), and sometimes, they don't (the spinning of a digital slot machine transitioning to the bear attack). A few scenes seemingly have little or nothing to do with Clint's present or past, such as when he passes the scene of a mass murder. In theory, all of this—from the massacre to the protagonist's discussion with his dead father (also played by Dafoe)—has to do with Clint. Ferrara makes the bigger points clear. Clint is lonely, uncertain, filled with guilt about various personal and relationship failings, and lost on physical, psychological, emotional, and spiritual levels. Dafoe plays the role, as well as a couple incarnations of Clint or his past, with conviction, which at least keeps Siberia honest on an emotional front. Most of it serves as a reminder that a dream is only interesting in the mind of the person who had it. Copyright © 2021 by Mark Dujsik. All rights reserved. |
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(for
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