This is one of the most underrated films ever. Some call it distracting and full of nonsense, but to me the film is beautifully telling that everything is intertwined - love and hatred, pleasure and pain, life and death. It shows there's always another side to things just like a messed-up Brit who actually is a guardian angel guiding the girl's lost soul all the way. I was only a kid when the film came out back in 1987, but it shook me with a huge magnitude and still does. When there's a light, there's also a shadow. My mind always circle back to this great piece of work at every phase of my life.

This film really deserves a better rep than it appears to have. It's not a fast moving film by any stretch, but it does a commendable job of portraying the phantasmagoric experience of the protagonist (played by Barkin). My strong suspicion is that people who have rated it poorly were wanting it to be a standard love story or follow a more traditional plot arc, and that it certainly does not do. Just the cast of this film should indicate that it's not your run of the mill flick, and every single member of the cast turns in a stunning performance (even the visually stunning but acting-challenged Grace Jones). The production values are good, and I really found the cinematography to be quite beautiful (but it -is- Spain, so that's not so surprising). Lastly, the Miles Davis soundtrack is haunting, poignant and beautiful. In my judgment, you can tell a lot about a person's response to this film by how they responded to Lynch's Mulholland Drive. If you like one, you'll like the other.

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!!

If you've seen Siesta and are puzzled, then read this spoilerWhen she wakes up by the stream, you hear a dog barking and then she gets into the taxi.Watching Siesta really made all my senses and my brain working at peak level. Very stimulating.Black Orpheus (Orfeu negro) is a 1959 film based on Orpheus and Eurydice, thus Siesta could have been titled Female Orpheus but then that would not stimulate you as much.I'd like to get the DVD so I can see how many subliminal triggers I missed.