ZAMA_ Lucretia Martel’s Long-Awaited Epic...

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‘Zama’ Review: Lucretia Martel’s Long-Awaited Epic Is a Serious Achievement That Will Keep You Guessing indiewire.com /2017/08/zama-review-lucretia-martel-pedro-almodovar-venice-film-festival-1201871782/ Ben Croll

Credit where it’s due: Few films have done more to unite the international film community than “Zama.” The minutes-long opening titles list over 20 different production companies and regional supports. The nominally Argentinian film is a joint venture between nine other countries as well, and the end credits name figures as diverse as Danny Glover, Pedro Almodóvar, and Gael Garcia Bernal among the many other who jumped on to help this project through a troubled, many year production. Finally complete, Lucrecia Martel’s film promises to be significantly more divisive. Technically an adaptation of Antonio Di Benedetto acclaimed modernist novel, “Zama” reads just as much like an open declaration of war against the line that separates form and content. The source text told the story of an 18th century magistrate driven to madness while waiting for his next post; the film forces the viewer to go mad right there with him. That man is Don Diego de Zama (Daniel Giménez Cacho, of “Bad Education”), an elite servant of the Spanish crown stationed in the remotest point of what we now know as Paraguay. In the film’s opening shot, he’s a regally dressed, high-shouldered beacon of Spanish imperial power. But as he stares longingly on the beach, we can see that’s already aching to escape. And that’s the best he ever looks in the narratively threadbare tale, which basically tracks his dawning realization that he’s just as much a prisoner as the slaves he commands. The film’s uncompromising aesthetic and deliberate pace may prove too steep a hurdle for many a viewer, even for those who wowed by the director’s previous films. While films like “The Headless Woman” and “The Holy Girl” also tied themselves to the lead’s subjective experience, both took place in the here-and-now, benefitting from a readily understandable context wholly apart from the alien colonial world of “Zama.” By eschewing any real exposition or situational cues, Martel forces viewers to either go all in all at once, or to never meaningfully connect. Viewers that are willing to meet the film at its very particular wavelength will find themselves lulled into a state of confused delirium. As Zama meanders through his outskirts post, he finds himself in a number of recurring situations. There are the frequent visits with Luciana (Lola Dueñas), a colonial matron who constantly rebuffs his 1/2


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