SnoopyStyle It's 4th of July. Claire (Ellen Barkin) wakes up in a bloody dress next to an airport runway in Spain without any of her possessions. She remembers 5 days ago in the US with Del (Martin Sheen) planning her big stunt sky dive on the July 4th holiday. She takes off for Spain vowing to return for the stunt. She's there to see trapeze artist ex-lover Augustine (Gabriel Byrne) and meets his wife Maria (Isabella Rossellini). As she tries to recall the last few days, she stumbles in the streets, almost gets raped and attends a party where she meets Nancy (Jodie Foster) and Kit (Julian Sands).The most memorable thing is Ellen Barkin in and out of her red dress. However everything else is a mess. The dialog is horribly written and delivered clunkyly. Barkin is walking around in a daze which is very fitting for this movie. Its worst sin is that it's boring. I find her odyssey rather lackluster. I don't care if she killed anybody or not. Director Mary Lambert tries to inject some surrealism but it's done badly like everything else in this movie. The best thing that I can ascribe to this movie is that it tries very hard to be different.

superman1 Sieata. A 90 minute sleep. This is the worst film made. A perfect example of how not to make a movie. How to avoid story, development, purpose. It can't even be surreal when it tries to be.It has no idea. Like most "art films" it's artless, and only paints boredom.It consists of characters doing nothing, but vague disconnected rambling, with no action. The only skillful part is Jodie Foster's English accent. Also a quirky poem from Sands.It's this kind of crap that puts me off films. I hate it.A review mentioned Jacob's Ladder. That skillful and powerful film showed how an original or different film can be made, with definite surreal moments - actual changes that can't occur in reality - scary scenes, excitement, with clear or specific messages and intentions you couldn't miss.This film called Sleep is utterly powerless. The dreariest dream with no intelligence. Even the "shock" ending seems implied.Erotic thriller? The first part (ho hum) is there, about as excessively as the other qualities. Minus 10 stars (for how many stars are in it).

manea33 Siesta is a most atmospheric film, almost dreamlike, you feel the Spanish heat while Ellen Barkin is stumbling through the pictures in confused despair. She wakes up lying on the roll way of an airport, not knowing where she is or how she got there. Her red dress is full of blood and she starts running... From there, an odyssey begins for her, with strongly impressive scenes of -not only sexual- passion. A bit confusing for the first time watching because of all the flashbacks, when you watch the film a second time you can really enjoy it. Many stunning actors, who appear to join Ellen without really helping her situation, only dragging her deeper in confusion. A surprising end, all of a sudden you begin to understand what happened to Ellen and why she lost her memory. This film left such a strong impression on me that i still recommend it to all of my friends and other movie fans.

garboil 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!!