“Desert of Namibia,” about a caustic 21-year-old Japanese wanderer, embodies its protagonist’s listlessness to a fault. Director Yôko Yamanaka was still a teenager when she made her debut feature “Amiko” in 2017, a sharply funny high school film with the jagged, quick-cut energy of a YouTube travel vlog. It marked her as a Gen Z voice to watch. “Desert of Namibia” similarly follows a young woman trying to find herself, but it swings stylistically in the opposite direction, holding and zooming for hilariously, sometimes painfully long. Your mileage may vary, as the film has a tendency to meander off course, but that is exactly its intention.

Actress Yuumi Kawai is immediately magnetic as Kana, a young Tokyo woman hinted to have roots in a different city or country, but the film is often opaque about important details. While shot with straightforward clarity, its narrative, like its protagonist’s mood, feels enveloped by fog.