zama

A las víctimas de la espera./To the victims of expectation.

Director

Lucrecia Martel

Based on the novel of the same name by Antonio Di Benedetto.

Main Cast

• Zama – Daniel Giménez Cacho

Full cast.

Paper instructions

Your assignment is to write a critical review of Zama that evaluates the historical merits of the film. In order to do this, you will need to draw on two assigned readings and lectures from class. You must use any readings assigned from class, though the strongest readings will be from the second half of the semester.. (No outside readings, though. Let’s keep it focused on the resources we’ve used in class.) Each paper should include a short overview of the plot, the important characters, and a discussion of the historical themes that they embody. Then, with reference to the readings, evaluate the historic merits of the film. Analyze the readings in the context of the film, and the film in the context of the readings. Pick at least one historical theme to analyze. Define it clearly in your paper.

It is up to you which historical themes you decide to emphasize from the theme, but you must be able to connect them to specifics in either the primary or secondary readings at your disposal.

Please note that this paper is to be entirely your own work. You may not use internet resources or other outside readings, except for IMDB. Stick to the readings that have been assigned in class. Whenever you use ideas from those readings, whether explicitly or not, you must cite them in footnotes. Citations should conform to Turabian style. A guide to Turabian style citations is available here. We will be keeping up with reviews of the film available online. The one exception to outside-class resources available for writing this paper is the film’s page on the Internet Movie Database, which you may only use to keep track of and correctly spell the names of the characters, except for IMDB.