Zama

_Zama_ is like that intellectual friend who speaks over your head about things you know nothing about and, even though you may appreciate him, you can still only take him in small doses.

The movie is an absurdist, Kafkaesque look at a Spanish civil servant at the end of the 18th century, fighting to get transferred out of the lost South American village in which he finds himself stranded. It's not an easy watch, but it is a rich film for those willing to work hard and invest a lot in it.

The history of colonization is written by men, representing success and courage. Zama, however, represents failure, that for which men do not seem prepared. Lucrecia Martel shows, in a tone of absurd humor, the eternal waiting of a man whose past does not serve him to gain respect in the present. More sensual in the first part, but also less successful, the film ends in a third act that displays all the talent of a director who looks sideways, who builds beautiful images that flee from the imitation of pictorial references. A director who builds her own image of the past.