Directed by Lucrecia Martel • 2017 • Argentina
Starring Daniel Giménez Cacho, Lola Dueñas, Matheus Nachtergaele
Lucrecia Martel’s daring adaptation of the classic Argentine novel by Antonio di Benedetto is a brilliantly subversive tragicomedy in which Zama (Daniel Giménez Cacho), an officer of the Spanish Crown stationed in South America, waits for a letter from the king granting him a transfer from the town where he is stagnating to a better place. As the years wear on without word from his superiors, Zama’s tropical torpor assumes increasingly absurd, dreamlike dimensions that speak to the inherent waste and futility of colonialism.