Lucrecia Martel directs Daniel Giménez Cacho, Lola Dueñas and Matheus Nachtergaele in this period fable about a magistrate of a South American colony who cannot get a succession of governors to grant him a letter approving his return to civilisation. 

A mix of Aguirre: The Wrath of God and Kafka’s The Trial, this was Sight and Sound’s Critics Poll’s fourth best film of 2017. Obtuse and boring. As you might expect destitution and fruitless bureaucracy to be.

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