SLIFF 2018 Review – ZAMA

ZAMA screens Tuesday November 6th at 9m and again Friday November 9th at 9:30pm as part of this year’s St. Louis International Film Festival. Both screenings are at the Plaza Frontenac Theater. Ticket information can be found HERE and HERE

Review by Stephen Tronicek

Lucrecia Martel’s Zama is the type of comedy that is found in the details. There’s a particular one, that always got me every single time I saw it. As Zama (Daniel Giménez Cacho), a powerful yet pitiful member of a Spanish colonial government, goes into every house he must, he must brush the poop off his shoes that he picked up while walking there. Not only is the movement within the frame objectively funny, there is a whipping motion to it that comes off of like a child who won’t get his candy back, it’s a joke baked into the very theme of the movie. No matter how dignified these men think that they are, they still will be knee deep in poop…and there’s more where that came from.

Zama plays like somebody made an intentionally funny version of Aguirre: The Wrath of God by way of A Serious Man. Zama is a Spanish officer hoping to escape the land that he has conquered but in the process of this wait, continues to meet one bad thing after the other, whether it be an increasing illness or…well you’ll have to see.

The best comedy knows that the gags themselves must actually be meaningful in the face of the theme of the movie, this one’s being that colonialism is ultimately a self-defeating prophecy. What’s so funny about Zama is just how subtle its sight jokes are but how much they actually mean to the work as a whole. As described before, Zama and his compatriots can never get their feet out of the poop, which on one hand creates a hilarious contrast with their “civil” personalities, but on the other hand, informs on the character. Even as Zama and the others keep hold of the colonialist province they are in, they aren’t rewarded for it but are rather presented with a hot, sickening, lifestyle. It makes one wonder even if Zama escaped his current province whether or not he’d really be greeted by anything more than poop.

Martel and her production designers have baked this idea into every single frame of the movie. There are so many one-off sight gags that the film can’t help but be amusing, but then there are the continuing gags that only build in their hilarity over time, such as the continuous squeak of the ever-present fans that must be pushed to fan off the Spanish officer.

On top of this, Daniel Giménez Cacho is absolutely hysterical as Zama. Cacho’s one-note throughout the entire film boils down to looking at the camera or the other characters with a face of stoicism, which either reads as him taking the biggest piss take in the world or just him trying to hold in tears. Both options highlight just how pathetic he actually is.

Zama may turn out being the funniest movie that I’ve seen all year and it is something you should see on the big screen if you get the chance. In any case, the film is available to rent on Video on Demand and on Blu-ray and it is more than worth checking out at home too.