Siberia review – Abel Ferrara leaves us out in the cold

The pairing of cult filmmaker Abel Ferrara and actor Willem Dafoe practically demands a unique brand of weirdness. Siberia, their sixth collaboration, comes two years after the surprisingly affectionate Tommaso, about an artist and his family living in Rome. Now they're back in weirder territory, though this time the strangeness feels hollow, forced, and meaningless – despite Dafoe's committed lead turn, Siberia never quite escapes the sense of its own silliness.

Dafoe plays Clint, a barman self-exiled to a remote, frozen wasteland somewhere in the region of Siberia. It soon becomes apparent that he's gone there to escape the demons of his past – a turbulent relationship with his father, the loss of his wife and son. Before long, Clint embarks on a kind of vision quest after he steps into a cave and is transfixed by a giant, glowing orb. Memories and reality are suddenly intertwined – and we're off.

But where, exactly, is anybody's guess. With Siberia, Ferrara has talked about how he set out to create a film with the feel of a dream. But it's in this aspect, ironically, where the movie falls flat. There's no way to ensure that a film feels dreamlike – it either does or it doesn't. And no matter how many bizarre sex scenes you pile on top of one another, the effect can't be forced. What we get are lots of scenes of husky-sledding – oddly recalling another recent snowy Dafoe picture: Disney's Togo – punctuated with moments of sudden violence; a mass execution; a bear attack. Quickly the picture takes on the feel of an ordeal. And not the good kind of ordeal, either, like in Antichrist – another, better Dafoe movie that Siberia seems largely derivative of.

If it was any fun, you might forgive the fact that it's all nonsense. Instead Clint encounters people from his past and a string of strange, cryptic men who talk in riddles and refuse to lend any weight to the impenetrable narrative. Siberia tests your tolerance for vaguely interconnected moments, strung together with no discernible logic. It's a tapestry of images that, despite the brief, 90 minute runtime, seems to stretch on and on like the wasteland of the title.

“Shake your arse,” one mysterious character dictates to Clint, who switches on the radio and starts dad dancing while Del Shannon's “Runaway” blares on the soundtrack. Ironically, this entertaining moment was the only point during my viewing where I felt compelled to ignore the instruction of that song's title. The region of Siberia is cold, hard, relentless. It won't be for everyone. Neither, frankly, will this film.

Siberia was screened as part of the BFI London Film Festival 2020. Find out more and get showtimes here.