Zama

"The frustrating nine-year wait for new material from Martel has done nothing to blunt her exquisite, inventive command of sound and image..."

"The film’s languorous, tangential flow isn’t for everyone, but you’ll be surprised by how easily you can roll with it, especially if you tune into Zama’s cringe-funny frequency."

"Ms. Martel is exploring the past, how we got here and why, but she is more interested in relations of power than in individual psychological portraits."

"[Martel's] film is haunted, haunting and admittedly prone to the occasional longueur insofar as it runs to its own peculiar rhythm; maybe even its own primal logic."

"Zama is a textured, darkly funny and wise piece of work. Material that could have bludgeoned us with its obviousness is allowed to build an argument with wit and sharp humour."

"Poetic is a word that gets thrown around willy-nilly, but it fits perfectly here. So does woozy. It feels less like a film than a high fever, burning slow but hot in order to incinerate a virus."

"This gently surreal, impossibly lush existential nightmare is almost punishingly languorous, but the rewards are many for those who vibe with its peculiar rhythms."

"A brilliantly discomfiting portrait of European colonialism and its discontents..."