Siesta (1987)

Nice effects though.

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

The working motto behind this pretentious blood-and-sex psychodrama seems to have been a paraphrase of Murphy's Law: if a thing is worth doing, it's worth doing badly. Here's a film with nothing to recommend it besides perverse casting, starring Ellen Barkin as an amnesiac skydiver wandering semi-naked around Spain, thinking she might have killed someone. But is she only dreaming, or has she gone insane? Attempts were made to camouflage a fatally weak script by needlessly fracturing the scenario into convoluted flashbacks and flashforwards, but the results are not unlike the rock videos director Mary Lambert once made, offering little else except the same self-absorbed imagery, artfully posed to no apparent purpose.

This film is one of my favorites, and I am often let down by other's opinions of it; the most common criticisms I hear are, pacing is too slow, story is too hard to follow, and not enough action.Check the cast list... it's not an action film. Claire (Ellen Barkin) is a high-flying stunt celeb on the verge of her greatest stunt ever - a high dive from a plane into a volcano with a net that's on fire. The day before she gets word that her old teacher/lover (gabriel Byrne) is about to get married. Appearantly there is unfinished business in that relationship, and she goes to Mexico to see him one last time. Trouble starts from square one in this film, although we the viewer are never given a clear idea of where exactly square one is. I have seen this film several times and it can be a very different story depending on your point of view.Without including a spoiler there is a never ending flow of symbols, analogies and flash-backs or flash forwards that aren't very clearly labeled. So you can get lost very easily, which is what seems to happen to our Heroine. The film seems to mediate on mortality, passion, spirituality and the afterlife.The title is "siesta" which as you know, is a brief afternoon nap, If you've ever had one, you probably know that the dreams that come during those times can be quite vivid. This film tries to recreate that sensation, and does so admirably, capturing the wonder and the terror of dreams that can be too extreme with passion and selective reality. Perhaps the main problem with Siesta is that it is packaged as a thriller, and the topic is indeed Psyco/surreal thrilling; at no real time is the plot explained and there is a deliberate non-linear (even circular) time line to the film... kinda like, I dunno, a dream... like the kind you get in an afternoon siesta.The soundtrack is delivered masterfully by Miles Davis, and is really worth hearing on it's own. Again, the dream-like theme is woven into the underscoring into several musical illusions and visions.If you want a good psycho-thriller, with an arty touch I really recommend it.Some interesting production notes - I believe this may have been the film to spark the off camera relationship between Ellen Barkin and Gabriel Byrne. This cast is very similar to the cast for "Gothic" made just a little later and nowhere near as good, but also very surreal. Alexi Sayle of the Young Ones makes an appearance in one of his few non-comic roles.Check it out!!

Someone please tell me what is so great about this film? It is nothing but very thinly disguised porno. Ellen Barkin proves once again what a very poor actress she is and that the only thing she knows to do in a film is take her clothes off. The only good thing about this film is Gabriel Byrne.Who unfortunately has very little screen time and the screen time he has he must share with Ellen Barkin. What a waste of time, film, and money. Why is this film called a mystery? I realized the minute that Claire woke up on the runway, with blood all over the front of her dress under which she was naked, that she was dead. Claire got what she deserved. As for Jodie Foster being in this film, this is another actress that is overrated.

This film summarizes the essence of a journey called life. In its frames there is a thrill that keeps me on my toes. Every time I watch it I become emerged in the world of a seductress by the name of Ellen Barkin.Mary Lambert knows her craft. It is a witchcraft of the mind. Thanks to her talent we not only have Madonna (Madonna Ciccone) but we have a VISUAL/METAPHORICAL/MOOD masterpiece called SIESTA. This is a tour de force movie with a great cast. I wish talented people as such can get together again under the direction of M. Lambert and bring out another chef-d'euvres like this. PS. One wonders why this great film is not available on DVD.