"Siberia" is a new 2020 movie and one of the first films shown here in my regular theaters after reopening after the COVID-19 pandemy. It runs for minimally over 90 minutes, so it is not a particularly long movie, but this should not really surprise anybody because the writer and director is American Abel Ferrara and he has made many films that are not too long. For this one here, he has collaborated again with Christ Zois, who helped Ferrara with the screenplay on many occasions. Bit despite Ferrara's origin, the United States are not one of the countries credited here in terms of the production. No less than four countries we have. Also from pretty different areas of the world if we look at Mexico. My country Germany is also one of them and this may at least partially explain why this film was shown at the Berlin Film Festival where it was also a nominee. Not a winner though and I can see why. I will get to that later. The lead actor here is Oscar nominee (will he ever win?) Willem Dafoe and he was basically also the only reason why I decided to check this film out at the cinema. Really like him a lot. Well, here he plays a man working at a pub far away from civilization because the pub is located in the area mentioned in the film's title. He likes his solitude, but still has customers here and there, just not too many and barely enough to keep him from going crazy. Or maybe he already did, who knows? It was really not clear in this movie. One thing I thought of though was that Dafoe starred in another film with focus on isolation not too long ago, the lighthouse movie next to Robert Pattinson and fittingly there was a trailer before this film here that showed us Pattinson briefly in Chris Nolan's new movie. But let's not drift too far away now. The lighthouse movie I just mentioned received a much better reception and will probably also be seen by many more people than this one here. But I am sure neither Ferrara nor Dafoe will be too mad about it. These two have worked together on many occasions already as I read and clearly they have become friends. Ferrara is even slightly older than dafor, who is not exactly a spring chicken anymore either. But it was his performance here that at least kept me slightly interested overall.

Like I said, this film felt very much style over substance. Early on, in the first half, we even have some kind of audio jump scare here and there, slightly video jump scare too occasionally, and luckily this was not thhe case in the second half anymore. There are many bizarre moments though that could have needed better elaboration, such as the scene with the fish at the very end. Or very early on, the scene with the guy who enters and is basically the protagonists doppelganger. The father-son theme wwas an interesting here, also how they included it with the shaving foam, but could have needed slightly better elaboration. Or the really pregnant woman who undresses inside the pub and then proceeds to have sex with the main character. Or the other unknown character who has some wisdom for Dafoe's character and immediately afterwards, the latter begins to sing and dance. Really catchy song by the way. I will catch up on that one and try to find it. Somehow it sounded familiar. So yeah, there are more bizarre moments and scenes like this, like for example the naked female freak show we get that felt like a nightmare. Dreams are certainly a very valid thing in this movie, although I am not sure they can explain anything that is going on here. Let alone everything. Another frequent inclusion here are female breasts really. Like naked female boobs. I guess this is why the film was shown this late. And again, it felt very much for the sake of it all, but not really making an impact whatsoever. Neither an artistic impact, nor an impact in terms of story telling. The weirdest moment was when at the end he has sex again, with an Asian I think and then she turns into a Black woman and then into the blonde he has been talking about before that. That dialogue was also a bit on the pretentious side and the actress there was really walking the fine line betwween nailing the part and overacting. She is also only included in this scene and not really known. just like almost everybody else except Dafoe. He is the one star here. The cast is also really diverse. Maybe, this explains the Mexico inclusion. Not sure. Most characters here speak Russian to Dafoe's character and he does not understand them. This, however, was intended like that and there are no subtitles for what they are saying. We are only supposed to understand the main character when he speaks English. And struggle together with him when it comes to understand everybody else. Then again, even if we had understood them, the story would not have been much clearer. I found it interesting that there was so much speaking in the form of a monologue and introduction voice-over from the central character right at the very start, but for the rest of the movie there was almost nothing. At least no long dialogues with the exception perhaps of the man who gets the "hero" to sing and dance, the one I mentioned earlier already. So yeah, I did not enjoy this film too much. Not enough for a positive recommendation. The beautiful snow landscapes were nice, but also could have been shown more often, but then again I feel it was much more about what was going on inside. Huskies rule though. So beautiful this special breed of dogs. It could be that this was the first collaboration between Ferrara and Dafoe (from five or six out there),but I must say the outcome here did not get me curious about the others, so I won't check them out any time soon. "Siberia" gets a thumbs-down from me. Not worth it, not even for my fellow Dafoe fans. Maybe only for hardcore Ferrara fans. He forgot thhe story and continuity here while coming up with one stylistic scene and shot after the next. Watch something else instead.

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.

..like "single white line on a black background"? Or some pain splashes? Or a brick painted yellow? Or a broken trash bucket? You know, those "new art", the things that makes people say "everything is art".. This is a movie like that.

Sure you'll find some symbolism and hidden meanings if you search for that.. but give some drugs to anyone and they'll make something similar..

It tries to be art, but fails to be a movie.