Zama

Absorbing and deeply unsettling, I enjoyed this movie but found it difficult to follow. Having not read the novel and being unfamiliar with Spanish colonial history, there was probably quite a bit I missed due to lack of education on the subject. However, I came out of the theater feeling as though I was covered in a deep tropical sweat. Like The Witch (2015), it immediately places the viewer in the film. Zama is accurate in its slow pace as a period drama on a tropical island during a time when letters from Spain took FULL YEARS to reach the colonies, and these days standard viewers may have trouble maintaining focus on the travails of one man's experience for almost 2 hours. Bursts of action actually woke older people up in the audience of the theater where I viewed it. Zama was marketed to U.S. audiences with a quickly-edited, intense trailer that had me itching to see it, while the film itself seems to have left more people scratching their heads. I'm looking forward to a second viewing, though preferably not on another humid, ninety-degree day.

Period cinema often lacks authenticity, a sense of faux deprivation when such scenarios are encountered at best. Not here however, where the discomforts and hardships experienced by the colonial Spanish and their conquests leaves no room for misplaced romanticism. To extract the most from this piece I suspect you already need an interest of it, to have read the book upon which it is based (and enjoyed it), to be an avid follower of those times and of that era. It's elegantly performed, believable and honest but you can easily be distracted if you're engagement light begins to fade and dim, needing only to do so by a fraction to initiate the disconnection.

Despite the occasional bursts of violence, this film takes its time - lending emphasis to the slowness of the bureaucracy that traps Zama in his situation, and the boredom and frustration he suffers.

Is he complicit in his fate through not playing the game as expected, or are his ambitions simply fantasy in the first place? I'm not sure - but I got a similar feel here as I did from "Waiting for the Barbarians" - although that was more brutal and Mark Rylance the better man. In both cases, though, I was drawn in and really wanted to find out where it was headed as a story.

A film to immerse oneself in.

Based on the novel by Antonio di Benedetto: in the 18th century, Don Diego De Zama (Daniel Giminez Cacho) is an administrative official assigned by Spain to oversee a South American colony (later part of Argentina). His attempts to change his status, position and work location (mainly to reunite with his wife and newborn child) are met with great resistance.

"Zama" is courageous in exploring issues of both race and class within colonialism. The main character and those like him falsely believe they are superior to the people indigenous to the land. But this principle comes back to haunt de Zama as well. He is of Spanish heritage but was born in "the colonies" and is thus considered inferior to those who are Spanish-born. He is stuck in the middle of a deplorable hierarchy and mindset.

Despite the film's assets, the narrative falls into something that is jumbled, incoherent, and sometimes incomprehensible. It is also too long. This is unfortunate considering its potential.

In the later scenes, the shortcomings are appeased with beautiful natural surroundings complemented with a blue sky. This does create a pleasant serenity but at this point, the enjoyment is only a consolation rather than an enhancement. - dbamateurcritic

Martel is a master in narrating boredom, silent craving and hot weather. Much like "La ciénaga" this film is a delight of image and sound, filled with thoughtful details that accurately transport the viewer to a state of mind. It might bear down a little too much but it might just as well make you forget were you are for two hours. In the end it´s worth the pain.

By focusing on officer Zama the more ambitious social or historical commentary is made almost on its own, leaving small excerpts here and there of a much larger and complicated colonial system. The plot is the man and his attempt on staying by leaving, or being by disappearing. Not sure but I feel Martel´s work has more to do with the senses than the mind. Once you dive in it´s definitely a pleasure.