Zama (2017) Reviews

• Rich, Deep and Dazzling

  Raven-19692017-11-04

  The radiant colors of fire sparks in the night, shocking pink native dyes and lush green moss, and oscillating cascades of sound including exotic guitar, electronic interludes and soothing lapping waves, these and other rich innovations bring extra zip to the already thrilling story of Don Diego de Zama. Zama, a Spanish administrator in 1700s South America, refuses to adjust to his surroundings and instead pines for the continent and habits he left long ago. As his expected transfer to Spain hangs in limbo, Zama's paranoia about the dangers of the local landscape and hostility towards those of different races, increases. He lives in a bubble of his own creation. Yet if the sulking and morose Zama will not visit the pulsing and vibrant new landscape around him, it will visit him. Director Lucrecia Martel deftly makes the audience part of the story. The scenes she provides are rich and dazzling in a variety of ways; color, sound, wildlife, clothing, furnishings, evident historical research, insight into human nature, brilliant acting and more. Her portrayal is wonderfully balanced. Martel does not glorify the past, nor does she skewer it. Pristine and beautiful scenery of lakes, rivers and forests are offset by glimpses of the morgue with its cholera and plague victims, the cruel and routine punishments and torture implements of the time and whirling ceiling fans that remind you of what the tropics without air conditioning must feel like. Martel's sensitivity and depth of feeling is astounding. The film audience, for example, is not provided with subtitles of native languages. "We deserve to not understand what the natives are talking about," said Martel who was at this Toronto International Film Festival screening. "History taught around the world is mostly about the colonizers." In one scene there are three sisters who revolve around a central point in a room, and Martel wants it to seem like they are part of a miniature music box. Such wonderful little touches. The film is spiced with brilliant lines throughout. "Europe is best remembered by those who were never there," for instance, and "nighttime is safer for the blind." The film is based on a novel by Antonio Di Benedetto.

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• A beautiful borefest

  distontos2018-10-12

  Let me start by saying that I adore Herzog's "Aguirre" and Coppola's "Apocalypse Now" is one of my absolute favourite movies of all time. Contrary to what critics say, "Zama" is nowhere near aforementioned masterpieces. It is well crafted in technical terms, with great use of cinematography and sound design, but it is also self-righteous, pretentious and unbelievably boring. The characters don't evolve, the story goes nowhere, the social commentary is sparse (if any) and all you are left with is some nice shots and traits of black humour. It's not enough to constitute a good movie, obviously. If you want to see a good movie from Argentina, watch Pablo Trapero's "El Clan" instead.

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• Zama: A caress to the senses and a stroke to the subconscious.

  ignacioadolfoolivero2017-10-04

  With Zama we are in front of a masterpiece that many will pass by and miss because of its slow rhythm, but to transmit the feeling of going-slowly-mad that Don Diego, (main character) is painfully getting, this rhythm is much needed. If you're able to slow down from today's full speed, always anxious way of life, you will notice what makes this movie stand tall. With an impressive photography and non traditional takes, alongside the sounds of deep Paraguayan inland and the colonial way of living in a strange land, this piece needs to be seen in cinema to get submerged into the context and then fully understand and feel the state of mind of Zama, which is basically the main substance of the plot; his waiting for an impossible and what comes with it: silent despair and slow madness. Regarding costumes, acting and editing, I've found also greatness within simplicity. Remember this while starting to watch Lucrecia Martel's masterpiece: this is a movie for the senses and the subconscious mind, not for reasoning.

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• Needs a Second Viewing

  zgburnett-98-3351452018-07-14

  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.

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• Cold Kafka in Colonial Argentina

  BiliPiton2018-05-13

  Poor Don Diego de Gama. Both parents Spanish, but he's never been to Spain, as he is frequently snobbily reminded by the Spanish-born residents in his 1790s Argentina back country town. He's a bureacrat serving a king 6000 miles away, unable to decide anything by himself, a fish in water (in a ruling metaphor) who can't live in a wet place. He wants to leave but can't, because everything is on hold. Will a military expedition bail him out? Bitterly totally ironic, structured around off camera sounds that are never what hearers think they are. I'm now hunting down the 1956 novel by Antonio_di_Benedetto.

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