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.

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).

The only good thing about this movie is the story (aka ...the original novel by Patrice Chaplin). I believe many cinematographically worthless movies get positive credits just because of the good script as in this one. Most of the positive comments here are in fact about the interesting storyline (... and well, about the nude scenes of Ellen Barkin.But when watched from the cinematography point of view this movie doesn't even deserve 2 stars. There is almost no art direction or DoP. And it is impossible to talk about the existence of film direction. Its a huge failure. OK, there is decent acting time to time.When i've read the book about 20+ years i loved it and all these years i looked for the movie. I watched it 2 times in the past 6 years and both times i thought what could have been if any other director had shoot it. Baz Luhrman could have made a gem out of this novel for example. Its clear that Mary Lambert wasn't ready to take the responsibility of shooting a movie back in 1987, as it she is not ready to shoot Siesta today.I believe any cinematography student can shoot a much better version of Siesta today. Its so sad to see a real gem got wasted in the hands of Marry Lambert (aka the music clip director). If you think this is a good movie read the book, you will see that every single thing that makes you think this is a good movie is in the book already.

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.