Siberia

Love to have been at the meeting where Ferrara pitched this film and someone told him 'Go make it.' I love to say something about 'Siberia's' story but there isn't one. Well acted and I'd love to give it props for production but as far as I can tell it's just a lot of weirdness posing as something profound.

A strange film that explores the mental landscape of a man struggling with his devastating memories. The filmmaking is of variable interest and boredom points its nose a little too often. Abel Ferrara has a lot of energy and inspiration but does not provide great intensity or great precision of filming here to make up for the lack of a real narration. The camera moves at times in a rather crude way. Dazzling beauties are scattered throughout the film. For example, a very good editing point where Clint (Willem Dafoe) perhaps sees himself entering a room. Madness lurks. You have to take it as a particular trip, not as a very mastered work, and then it becomes an interesting experience beyond the flaws.

If my dreams would be that boring, I would simply stay awake till I get some real trippy stuff going on in my mind. Verdict: pseudo-artsy-intellectual movie that achieved mainly one emotion in my soul: boredom by torture (if this of course was/is the aim of writer and director, they did well). Some introspective scenes including some nudity and violence don't make something good by itself, and even Mr. Dafoe's acting skills could not save this movie for me - and I really like some of his more experimental and trippy movies like The Lighthouse (2019, also directed by Abel Ferrara) or Antichrist (2009, Lars von Trier).

And appropriately I fell asleep halfway through. I did wake up eventually and watch it all but only with a few cups of coffee to keep me going. I usually love Ferrara and thought I could watch Dafoe in anything. This tested that theory to destruction. Oh there are some excellent scenes but on the whole it's just so soporific. Maybe it's all that snow..............................

Well, I'm not the dumbest chicken sitting in the middle of the road, but I'm not sure what I watched. Is our main character hallucinating from the isolation? Is he dead & somehow we're reliving his past (or maybe he is reliving his past & we're observers). Did this bar in the middle of nowhere burn down? If so, what happened?

If my mind needs exercise there are far more productive ways to accomplish that.

Nice scenery.