Zama (film)

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Movie
German title Zama
Original title Zama
Country of production Argentina , Brazil , Spain , Dominican Republic , France , Netherlands , Mexico , Switzerland , USA , Portugal , Lebanon
original language Spanish , Portuguese
Publishing year 2017
length 115 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Lucrecia Martel
script Lucrecia Martel
production Benjamin Domenech,
Santiago Gallelli,
Matías Roveda,
Vania Catani
camera Rui Poças
cut Karen Harley,
Miguel Schverdfinger
occupation

Zama is a feature film by the Argentine director Lucrecia Martel . It premiered at the Venice International Film Festival in September 2017 . The film is based on a novel by Antonio di Benedetto and is about the colonial official Don Diego de Zama, who waits in vain for a promotion and return home.

action

Zama is set in what is now Asunción , Paraguay , in the 18th century . Don Diego de Zama serves the Spanish crown as corregidor, d. H. as an administrative and judicial officer. For a long time he has been waiting for a letter from the king that will finally recall him from his post and back to his wife and children. The governors in charge of him come and go. Zama, long marked by sadness and weariness, continues to wait in vain for his transfer. As a so-called americano , who was not born in Spain but in Latin America, he suspects being passed over during promotions. During the long period of time, Zama tries with little success to gain the attention of various women, has an illegitimate child, is waiting for the missing pay, and has to move to increasingly poor homes.

Finally, he takes part in an expedition to hunt down the legendary bandit Vicuña Porto and thus achieve his transfer. He is drifting through the Paraguayan grasslands with a group of mercenaries, who are decimated more and more during the journey. In the end, Zama is lost in a delirium reminiscent of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness .

production

Lucrecia Martel made her first film in nine years with Zama . Due to the director's cancer and the long post-production phase, the film, made in 2015, was not released until two years later. Martel adapted the script based on the novel Zama waits by Antonio di Benedetto himself. Zama u. a. by Pedro Almodóvar , Danny Glover and Gael García Bernal .

reception

The film convinced 96% of the Rotten Tomatoes critics and received an average rating of 8.16 out of a possible 10 points. It was Argentina's official contribution to the Oscars in 2017.

The industry journal Variety described the film as “confusing and intoxicating”, praising Martel's virtuoso handling of image and sound, as well as her subtle and at the same time relentless exposure of the social and racist prejudices in the higher social classes.

During that time, Katja Nicodemus discussed Zama in connection with other films by the director, in which "repressed historical guilt" is also discussed or indigenous servants support a "system that is dissolving from within". In comparison, Zama goes further to the "root causes of this guilt". Martel is working here for the first time with “virtuously composed long shots”, the long shots create a feeling for the vastness of the landscape and the forlornness of the Spaniards in it, electronic noises on the sound track seem like “hyper-realistic cracks”.

Awards (selection)

  • Awards in ten categories, including best film, best director, best leading actor, best screenplay, best camera at the Award of the Argentinean Academy 2017
  • KNF Award at the International Film Festival Rotterdam 2017
  • FIPRESCI Prize at the 2017 Havana Film Festival
  • Cóndor de Plata in ten categories, including Best Film, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Cinematography at the Prize of the Association of Argentine Film Critics and Film Journalists 2018
  • Best director at the Bildrausch Filmfest Basel 2018 (awarded together with Lav Diaz )

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Agustin Mango: Oscars: Argentina Selects 'Zama' for Foreign-Language Category. In: The Hollywood Reporter. September 29, 2017, accessed on March 29, 2020 .
  2. ↑ a b Zama. In: IMDb. Retrieved March 23, 2020 (English).
  3. ↑ Peter Bradshaw: Zama review - desire and despair at the end of the world. In: The Guardian. May 24, 2018, accessed on March 22, 2020 .
  4. ↑ Zama. In: trigon-film.org. Retrieved March 22, 2020 .
  5. ↑ Wolfgang Lasinger: Delirious Realities. In: artechock.de. Artechock eV, accessed on March 22, 2020 .
  6. ↑ a b Patrick Seyboth: Critique of Zama. In: epd film. June 22, 2018, accessed March 22, 2020 .
  7. ↑ Alexandra Seitz: Masterpiece film "Zama": Lucrecia Martel crosses a Latin American novel with Conrad and Beckett. In: Berliner Zeitung. July 11, 2018, accessed March 22, 2020 .
  8. ↑ Zama (2018). In: Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved March 28, 2020 (English).
  9. ↑ Guy Lodge: Film Review: "Zama". In: Variety. August 31, 2017, accessed on March 29, 2020 .
  10. ↑ Katja Nicodemus: The madness, the heat, the morass. In: The time. July 18, 2018, accessed March 29, 2020 .
  11. ↑ Lucrecia Martel's Zama Dominates Argentina's Premios Sur 2017. In: Cinema Tropical Inc. September 17, 2018, accessed on March 21, 2020 (English).
  12. ↑ KNF Award. In: International Film Festival Rotterdam. September 2, 2015, accessed March 21, 2020 .
  13. ↑ Lucrecia Martel, “Zama”. In: fipresci.org. Retrieved March 21, 2020 .
  14. ↑ Prize winners 2018. In: Bildrausch Filmfestival Basel. Retrieved March 21, 2020 .