Review of Zama (2017)
Seen in 2018.
A combination of Waiting for Godot (1953) with an exsanguinated Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972) and a people’s history of Latin America. Despite all the nudity and colonial despair, it’s pretty dull. There is very little sense of the local wildlife, or even the local culture. The few lively moments, like the background llama, made me wish for a more imaginative direction. It is partly the point for Zama to be “la antipelícula de aventuras” (Víctor Blanes Picó’s review for EAM), but a little bit of The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988) could have elevated the metaphor, and I believe a larger budget would have been helpful.