Best Ana: “What would you do if I asked you to sleep with me?”

Best Keanu: “Now?”

I loved Siberia. I mean I really, really loved Siberia.

Sometimes when I come to this site to write a post about a movie, and I fill out 5 stars, I want to add a footnote: “No, I really mean it this time. Yeah, those other 5-star movies are good. But this one — this one. This one.”

Perhaps it’s just the day I’ve been having. Perhaps it’s because, like with Exposed, the reviews were so poor and the trailer so mind-numbingly dull my expectations were so low it would almost have to seem like genius. But there’s more here. Sure, a lot of it, I am sure, is me connecting with some of the elements of the film. But that’s what art is. Connecting in ways others might not personally understand. And that’s ok.

From its opening scene, Siberia has that retro feel of a 70s spy thriller, but — as he says more than once in the film, Lucas Hill isn’t a spy. This also isn’t a thriller. There are welcome shades of John Wick — the tactile action of Lucas putting SIM cards into burner phones recalls Wick reloading a pistol or piecing together a sidearm, and there’s a shot of Keanu, facing the camera with a person speaking to him from behind, a la “Happy Hunting, Mr. Wick,” and “Mr. Wick, do enjoy your party.”

But Lucas is not Wick. He’s not an assassin and has no apparent talent for physical violence. It’s tough to tell who Lucas is, really, or if he’s even a good diamond trader. He’s in Siberia because his partner in crime, literally, has gone missing and he has to repair the damage. Sidelined in a remote area of the country, he meets a cafe owner named Katya, who ends up sheltering him overnight after he’s knocked out by some unruly patrons.

Side note here — part of the vast appeal of Siberia is its setting. Katya has a modest home, with dated furnishings. The community is isolated. Lucas and Katya’s brothers hunt bears in the woods. There’s snow and cold. Katya’s home is also a private space, where Lucas making french toast in the morning immediately feels intimate, even before they have had any physical intimacy.

Don’t worry. I’ll get to the physical intimacy. Oh, don’t worry about that.

[*]

This morning I wrote a difficult exam, on little sleep. When I handed in my paper, my professor asked me in a whisper how it went. There were probably 100 or so other people in the room, two of the prof’s classes combined. I considered my answer before saying the truth, “I think I passed.” He nodded and said, “Have a nice summer.”

After the exam, I spent about an hour in a coffee shop, writing in my journal about the work I had to do, the exam, and this professor, whose class I first wandered into nearly three years ago. Three years ago, at about this exact time — April as a matter of fact — I began a long process of resorting, removing, disconnecting, integrating, remembering, and choosing what to welcome into my life and what to cut away, what ties and memories to sever. I didn’t fully understand then what I was doing, consciously or unconsciously, and how it would affect me (heal me).

When I entered his class that September, it was something of a lark. But it quickly became a protective space, a respite from the rest of my life and mind. His room was a place of solace, even if I was largely out of my depth with the dense course material, struggling to pass. Maybe because of that — because of the struggle, and his support, his willingness to teach — it was a place of respite. So I stuck with him, kept taking his classes, sometimes working through the same one more than once. Through COVID, through the apparent emergence from COVID, through this term where I was once again in the same room with him and his other students, and as I lost my head a bit again, here again I was safe for a few hours a week in this space of protection and solace.

So today when I handed him an exam for what should be the last time, I felt like I’m ending a cycle, entering a new phase. I came home after writing, was too tired to do any work, but not tired enough to fall asleep. So I scanned the Keanu Reeves filmography and went back and forth between Parenthood — which I saw 30 years ago or so, but had no realization Keanu was in it — and Siberia. It came down to one question: today, do I feel like watching 25-year-old Keanu, or 54-year-old Keanu? Almost every day, 54-year-old Keanu will win hands down, although I know I’ll go back to young Keanu eventually, because on this website every entry on the filmography has its day.

Siberia pulled me out of my life for about an hour and a half, so I had this brief pause before starting again, getting the gears going on another cycle. It was quite the space to be in for that short window of time.

[*]

Siberia is a love story, not a thriller, and it’s not romantic. It is passionate and emotionally complicated. It’s deeply sensual, overtly sexual, and intimate in unique ways. It’s good. It’s so, so, good.

It’s well-written, too, so much so that I actually had the thought that this is a good script. Scott Smith wrote this, and he got an Oscar nomination — if that means anything — for writing A Simple Plan some years ago.

Honestly, it’s close to perfect, this little film.

But let’s talk about Katya and Lucas.

[*]

Katya and Lucas negotiate sex like grown-ups. She’s beautifully upfront, asking him simply, “what would you do if I asked you to sleep with me?” She asks him from her living room, where she can see him in the kitchen, eating some local delicacy prepared by her sister-in-law. Her question is a simple one, phrased like she’s asking him how he’d feel about taking a few hundred bucks to do her landscaping. He’s taken aback, but not overly so.

“You’re very forward.”

“You find this unappealing.”

“Quite the contrary.”

Lucas’ response comes down to, I can’t right now. So the sex is delayed, by several hours I suppose, until they are alone in her cafe. They rapidly take off whatever clothes are necessary to do the deed, on top of a Formica table.

Later, in her home, there’s more rapid undressing, and Lucas’ mouth explores some sensitive spots on Katya’s body. This is, so far as I can tell right now, the only entry on the list of “Times Keanu Reeves simulated cunnilingus on-screen,” but I have a lot of movies left to see, so who knows. I doubt that’s lurking somewhere in Parenthood (although I do recall that movie having a scene with a vibrator).

The sex in Siberia is passionate and erotic. Freely negotiated. Katya and Lucas are grown-ups who seem to know exactly what they’re doing and what they want. It’s very appealing. It’s visceral, straightforward, and egalitarian.

There’s at least one complication, in addition to the underworld diamond trading; Lucas’ marriage, making this affair adulterous.

Siberia places Lucas’ infidelity at the centre of their relationship, through the intimate conversations he and Katya share. The dialogue reveals something insightful about the particular type of intimacy extramarital relationships can breed, one that’s not always ancillary to the betrothed relationship but sometimes feeding off of it, exploiting its flaws and vulnerabilities. There’s an excitement there, and it can masquerade as a deeper kind of love.

Katya’s shifting feelings about his wife for me were a reflection of her trying to placate her own changing emotional terrain, especially when she ends up away from home, with Lucas in Saint Petersburg. He’s asked her to come to fulfill an errand, and she doesn’t want to be used — but ends up in a few dangerous situations in any event, due to her proximity to him. Emotionally, maybe she’s gone deeper than she anticipated with Lucas; in every other way, she’s ended up risking herself for him and there are limits on what he can or will do to protect her.

There are uncomfortable moments; in Saint Petersburg Lucas’ task results in an unsettling exploitation, but one that is the first of two scenes that fully reveal to the audience how vulnerable Katya really is and why her brothers are so insistent on shielding her from men like him.

No, Siberia is not John Wick. It’s also a pretty basic crime/intrigue story. The affair and its imperfections are what this movie is really about, and if you’re feeling sleepy on a Wednesday afternoon, it is a very good way to temporarily escape your life.

April 2022