flute_ian
I stumbled across this on late night TV part way through and was soon mesmerized, likely because when Miles plays a note, I can't move. I couldn't figure out what it was about, which probably added to the appeal, given the hypnotic nature of the music. Throw in three of my 'favorite girls' i.e. Isabella, Ellen and Jodie, and I was hooked. Marcus is channeling Sketches of Spain, and it was wonderful to hear Miles in that milieu once again. I highly recommend this movie despite the low rating of circa 5 out of ten that you see on the site here. Perhaps the key is to dispense with any expectations of what a movie should be, fundamentally. If nothing else, just revel in the music !! (...and the cute ladies...)(additional comments a year later) I have to admit I must be somewhat obsessed with this project. Perhaps re: Miles/Spain. And Marcus Miller has great taste. And is that Bennie Maupin/bass clarinet? But what gets me in addition upon further viewing is the editing. And you have to give credit for personnel decisions. If this is Lambert then she certainly must have some kind of special nose for creative intelligence.
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.
FieCrier
Claire "On a Dare" wakes up by an airport runway wearing a red dress. She's dirty and bruised. She has no idea where she is or how she got there, or even what day it is, but she does remember who she is and retains most of her memories. She strips off her dress by a creek to wash off it and herself what seems to be blood, and sunbathes nude to dry off - sustained full-frontal nudity within the first two minutes of the movie, jeepers!I'm reminded of a line from the novel The Screaming Mimi by Frederic Brown, "There's murder before the story proper starts, and murder after it ends; the actual story begins with a naked woman and ends with one, which is a good opening and a good ending, but everything between isn't nice."Claire, finding the blood washes off her thinks someone else must be dead. Discovering and remembering that she is in Spain, she thinks she may have killed her ex-lover Augustine, or his new wife.Claire had been due to skydive without a parachute into a dormant (or artificial?) volcano covered with a net to catch her, that will be on fire. If she misses the net, or hits it after it has burned too much, she's dead in Death Valley. Receiving a letter from her ex-lover who doesn't want her to do the stunt, she flies to Spain to try to get him to return to her, despite her having been married to her promoter for six years or so.Claire has some strange adventures, sometimes pretty horrible. A fat taxi driver with tin dentures offers to help, but his price is sex, or rape. An eccentric brawling artist tries to help her, and doesn't seem to have any motive other than "the good you give out is returned to you."Sprinkled throughout are shots of Claire skydiving; like Roger Ebert, I couldn't tell if this was "fantasy [...] memory, or anticipation" not that it makes much difference. Throughout "falling" gets mentioned a lot in other ways. Claire, in a Catholic church says she feels like she is falling, the artist talks about how the only kind of falling that isn't failing is falling in love, etc.One thing the title seems to refer to is a siesta Claire's ex-lover takes in a small building near a church, where they perhaps used to have sex.Bruce Joel Rubin wrote a screenplay in the 1970s that was considered one of the best unproduceable scripts. This movie seems in a way an attempt to make it, though it is based on a novel. This movie didn't really do it for me, and perhaps time would be better spent reading the novel. Rubin's screenplay was produced a few years after this movie, and turned out quite well.
el_nickster
This is a truly dull and ponderous movie, with one redeeming feature: Ellen Barkin exposes her lovely body in a very comprehensive manner. If you carry a torch for Ellen Barkin, go ahead and watch this film. Otherwise, I wouldn't bother. The Washington Post film critic Rita Kemply accurately dubbed this film "Yawn of the Dead."The plot: our heroine wakes up in Spain, without any recollection of how she came to be there. This is one of those movies where the main character is dead, but doesn't know it. Don't worry, I didn't "blow the surprise," because you would have figured it out within like five minutes anyway. So, she relives her final days and sees how she died. She gets naked and gets it on with a Spanish dude while she is at it.So, I would only watch this movie to satisfy a purient interest to see Ellen Barken in her most naked role.