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Ten minutes into Zama, the central character, Don Diego de Zama (Daniel Giménez Cacho), is called to the shore to receive an unexpected visitor, a trader from Montevideo. Cut to an establishing shot of several unfamiliar people moving and milling about Zama—an image that does not establish (in the conventional mode of narrative exposition) very much at all. Then the film transits to a close-up of a wary Zama, placed on the left-hand side of the frame, bringing to his lips the drink that his associate, Indalecio (Germán de Silva), has just poured for him. Various shouts, from off-screen, ping around the sound mix. Indalecio, also off-screen, presents his request for administrative help with the visitor’s business affairs (“Your relationship with the Treasury Minister is good?”) to Zama, who is still in his off-center close-up. Several subjects are elliptically raised in their conversation as the shot churns on:...