Three West

Ahhh Siesta, a movie that has always left a lasting impression on me. The film is an adaptation of the fiction novel Siesta: A Super Natural Love Story by Patrice Chaplin starring Ellen Barkin, Gabriel Byrne, Jodie Foster, Julian Sands, Isabella Rossellini, Grace Jones and Martin Sheen.

I was in 6th or 7th grade when this film was released in 1987 but of course didn’t get to see it until high school. I find that the films I like the most are the ones I saw between the ages of 15 and 18. This was one of those films. But I have since watched it as an adult and I still love it.

This film begins with a woman (Ellen Barkin) in a provocative red dress lying in an field at the end of an airport run way with a black garbage bag next to her and buzzards flying overhead. It looks as though she is sleeping. An airplane flies over and she awakens in shock and panic and the film begins. I was immediately drawn in by this. I wanted to know why she was there. It’s not a complicated film at all and certainly not particularly artistic or profound. It is simply intriguing.

This film is a combination of a forward moving story that is actually going backwards in time mixed in with memories and flashbacks. So, Claire (Ellen Barkin), wakes up in this field and she doesn’t know why she is in Spain and doesn’t remember anything after arriving there. During her effort to figure out what has happened she first meets a strange cab driver with false teeth made of tin who appears nearly everywhere she goes. Soon after this cab driver would ask her for sex and she has to run and be saved from him a few more times after that. She also meets a strange, carefree pair (Jodie Foster and Julian Sands) who do nothing but drink and party and briefly their senselessly unpleasant friend Conchita (Grace Jones). In the end all of these characters would seem to have no real meaning to the story, except for Kit (Julian Sands).

In all of its bizarreness this film is really a love story about Claire (Ellen Barkin) who was trained by Augustine (Gabriel Byrne) to become a flying trapeze artist. The two also fell in love with each other and developed a heated, romantic relationship. But when Claire decided to become a stunt woman with what she learned, they parted ways.

What is great about the movie from a writer’s point of view is the mystery behind the events of the film from the very beginning when Claire is laying in the field. When she wakes up she has blood on her dress and bruises on her body. She starts to think she must have killed someone. Because of this, we see her constantly running. Over time the bruises and injuries start to disappear and her body became more numb and weak towards the end. I love this sort of stuff in films.

It is also the 4th of July when she wakes up in the field, the day she’s due to jump out of an airplane without a parachute into a volcano covered by a net that will be set on fire for the jump (an act that would surely kill her). I also recently noticed that when her husband (Martin Sheen) was acting out the jump using models and dropped the doll of Claire over the flaming net, it missed and fell to the floor. He picked it up and stood there thinking for a moment then put it in his pocket. It was as if he was thinking about the reality that this jump could kill her but then decided it was a risk he was willing to take. Just prior to that he was listing all of the sponsorship and commercials she would be getting after the jump. This coincides when Augustine tells Claire that while she thinks she is using her husband, it is really him using her.

When Claire was walking in the little town she threw up on the side walk where a man was sitting reading a paper. He didn’t even notice her. She walks further down the sidewalk and a woman in black sees her, looks quickly away and does the signum crucis (sign of the cross). I thought this meant that because she was dead only some people could see her. This really didn’t add up because many other people were able to see her. Perhaps what I was thinking is what the filmmakers intended but it didn’t really work.

The gallery scene is still a mystery to me. Could be nothing at all. However, I did notice that the paintings were of all of the key characters. This is when Claire meets Kit (Julian Sands) who talks in riddles and Nancy (Jodie Foster sporting a high class British accent) who laughs a lot and talks basically about nothing the whole time. Yep, only Jodie Foster could make such a frivolous character come alive. *Smile*

But it isn’t long before we realize the role Kit really plays in this film. He claims to be her guardian angel right off the bat.

Later, Ellen Barkin gets to spoon with and kiss Jodie Foster (I guess this is what earned this film the plot keyword “lesbianism” on IMDB, rather unfairly IMO) a bit before Julian Sands comes in and claims he’s too drunk to “get it up” just before he hops in bed with the two and proceeds to have no problems “getting it up” for Jodie Foster.

This movie ranks high on my sexy-meter because of the undeniable natural chemistry between Ellen Barkin and Gabriel Byrne. I guess that was accurate since they did marry and have two children after this film.

This film has a few nuggets of beautiful imagery as well, such as the scene where Claire is watching Augustine brushing his wife, Marie’s (Isabella Rossellini), hair; not to mention very tastefully filmed sexuality.

I also think this may have been the first film I’d seen with nudity other than bare breasts in it as well. This had full female frontal nudity and brief male full frontal nudity.

During a flashback, Claire acts stupidly by approaching Augustine and his new wife at a pub. There, she asks him about their spot in the little shack behind the church, a comment she pays for in the end.

The ending of this movie was fantastic. Claire is running through the small Spanish town as the cops pour in and the villagers run towards the commotion. Kit shows up out of nowhere and tells her to go where she’s being taken. It cuts to Marie busting into the shack behind the church where Claire and Augustine are lying naked. She stabs Claire to death before Augustine could stop her. The commotion with the police is them coming to take Marie to jail for Claire’s death. I’m not sure why Augustine didn’t go to jail because his wife didn’t get that body to the airport by herself. A reporter asks Marie why did she leave the body at the airport, a question the writer/filmmaker answered through storytelling; “because she should have left when she was supposed to”.

And last but not least, the film score by Marcus Miller … absolutely superb! It featured dreamy, romantic solos by Miles Davis and I instantly fell in love. Without this soundtrack I don’t believe this film would have been as impactful as it has been.

Other Memorable Scenes: