2017 Directed by Lucrecia Martel
In a remote South American colony in the late 18th century, officer Zama of the Spanish crown waits in vain for a transfer to a more prestigious location. He suffers small humiliations and petty politicking as he increasingly succumbs to lust and paranoia.
Emmanuel Croset Sebastián Pappalardo Manuel de Andrés Guido Berenblum Víctor Alejandro Tendler Gerardo Kalmar
Bananeira Filmes Canana El Deseo O Som e a Fúria Rei Cine Patagonik MPM Film Lemming Film KNM Louverture Films Schortcut Films Picnic Producciones CNC Institut Français INCAA ICAA L'Aide aux Cinémas du Monde Ministère des Affaires étrangères et du Développement International Netherland Filmfund Perdomo Productions Programa Ibermedia
Argentina Brazil Spain USA France Lebanon Mexico Netherlands Portugal Dominican Republic Switzerland
扎馬
maybe the best horny colonialist comedy since HOW TASTY WAS MY LITTLE FRENCHMAN.
like all Martel movies, i'm enjoying it a lot more after the fact. the last 30 minutes (and that llama) will stick with me for a long time, i'm sure. happy to leave it there for now.
Still utterly engrossed by this purgatorial satire that subtly shows how colonialism founded the modern, western middle class by priming present-day dissatisfaction and boredom with violently achieved power. In a world without Kiarostami, Martel may now be the finest living user of sound in film.
51/100
Perhaps the most damning thing I can say about Zama—a film I'd been eagerly anticipating for years—is that I spent much of it thinking not of Martel's previous work, but of John Sayles' worthy, lumbering Amigo. Apart from the llama photobomb (which may have been a happy accident to some degree, but I give directors credit for recognizing and retaining those), Martel stifles herself formally, adopting a deep-focus classicism that reinforces the inherent pitfalls of a movie about stasis. There's just precious little to engage the mind or the eye for much of the film—a standard-issue lit-adaptation problem (the book is reportedly Zama's interior monologue, and hilarious), but not a trap that I'd have expected this particular filmmaker to fall into. Gets livelier in the home stretch, thanks to a welcome change of scenery and the delayed appearance of the much-discussed villain, but I submit that when folks call Zama "difficult," what they really mean is "kinda dull."
86
"The mischievous thrill at the burrowed, uncanny center of Lucrecia Martel’s Zama is a llama. In a pivotal scene, Don Diego de Zama (Daniel Giménez Cacho) - our asshole buffoon protagonist – sits and, in one scene of many, accepts his position within the Spanish Empire. He’s a lonely Corregidor defined by his aimlessness; angry at the reality of his prospects. For a majority of the film, he is entirely subject to the power of others as his own is fruitlessly overtaken and spent needlessly. And in this moment, as he is, yet again, forced to come to terms with his place in the grand realities of the colonist mythos, a llama walks towards the camera and plants itself next to…
A post-colonial Latin American cinema quagmire: if everything that comes from Europe is rotten, why format your film for European consumption? Not devoid of some strong moments, but the overall effect is diluted.
Here's another instance where I saw a completely different movie than what every other critic did. For all of its visual strength and seemingly fertile thematic ground, Zama holds the record for the one movie I've fallen asleep to the most before initial completion. It took me six attempts to wakefully traverse this hour and forty five minute long period piece. Whether it be a credit to the intriguing soundtrack and gorgeous cinematography or a boon to a good nap, the movie is seething in ambience, so get your coffee in before you watch it or Zama will zonk you out.
Ask most other reviewers and they'll say this is director Lucretia Martel's triumphant return to film making. It's a…
the bureaucracy and brutality of colonialism, an ongoing punishment of bodies (and minds) with no reward. immersively pungent, overflowing with brilliant use of sound design and compositions.
on the compositions in particular: Martel emphasizes verticality within the frame but bodies are hardly ever contained in its boundaries, often cut off at the head or torso. this makes the images seem more narrow (even cramped) than they actually are, an illusion Martel further builds upon by drawing attention to their surprisingly vast depth of field, creating a sense of the "action" of a scene having been crammed awkwardly into the foreground. the figures visible in the background are often those of indigenous or enslaved people, who are either as still and…
dreamy and mysterious without overtly framing itself as such. lucrecia martel is so innovative with sound -- here she takes it to a farcical extent. excellent llama cameo.
NYFF 2017.
Colonialism Roleplay ASMR - Must Watch Till End!
the first word we hear in ZAMA is "voyeur," an accusation laid against the title character by a group of women he watches bathe on the beach. zama flees as a woman pursues him, only to turn around and strike her down. it is this inciting incident that frames the rest of the film and its perspective on colonialism: not as violence against women persay, but as voyeurism. the indigenous population and enslaved persons are often pushed to the margins of the frame, but they are not absent; martel often shows them watching their oppressors, as much as their oppressors watch them. few films i can think of (the only that immediately…
Colonialism as a closed loop. The faces of the generals and the enemies change but the names seem to stay the same, all the while the once proud official slowly deteriorates, his clothes rotting and his mind melting. Martel's rapturous compositions manage to feel cramped even at their most expansive, using intersecting planar blocking to add to the general sense of confusion, of not knowing where to look or what to do. The last third, which leaps ludicrously far away from the preceding material, somehow sharpens the entire feature, bringing its nightmarish logic into crystalline focus.
