The relationship of a young girl on the cusp of adolescence with her mysterious guardians is the backbone of Ivan Fund’s The Message (El mensaje), a delicate portrait of three outcasts surviving on what may be their own and others’ fantasy about the girl’s “gift” of communicating with animals. The leisurely pace, precision black-and-white camerawork, and a gossamer-thin narrative earmark it for festivals, where attentive audiences will enjoy its subtle pleasures of characterization and setting.
Though tagged in its Berlinale description (it bowed in competition) as “supernatural”, in reality this is a road movie with precious little of the paranormal. It is summer and Anika (Anika Bootz) is a smiling innocent who is traveling around the rural countryside in Roger and Myriam’s camper. It will take the whole film to form an idea of just who these people are and how they are connected. That is basically what the film is all about.
The story is reminiscent of Paula Hernandez’s 2024 A Ravaging Wind, in which a teenage girl travels around rural Argentina with her evangelical preacher-father, feeling desperately trapped in the role of his assistant. The Message is more subtle and elusive, making the audience question its initial assumptions. Taking interpersonal communication as its theme rather than individual liberty, the screenplay by Fund and Martin Felipe Castagnet keeps characters to a minimum and nudges the viewer to gradually piece together their feelings and motivations.
The first clue to what is going on appears when a country man approaches the camper, parked near a field, holding out a large turtle. A woman appears in her regular costume of tank top and leopard print pants. Myriam (Mara Bestelli) hesitates to wake up Anika, but the man has money to offer. The state of Argentina’s runaway inflation is cleverly underlined when we learn 14,000 pesos are worth $1. The price of a “reading” by Anika is 12,000 pesos – and presumably affordable by the farmers and country dwellers who ask her to communicate with their pets, alive or dead. Meanwhile the trio steals corn from the fields for their dinner.
It seems clear that the two adults are exploiting the local pet owners’ gullibility, particularly when Myriam makes up sentimental messages from missing pets and says they were channeled by Anika. Suspicions deepen when she poses the girl in front of a kitschy Pet Cemetery sign, which she quickly puts online. Roger (Marcelo Subiotto) handles the online payments.
But this naïve scam is not the end of the story.
After miles of traveling through soulful landscapes and mesas skirting clear streams, Roger drives the trusty little camper up to a lonely psychiatric hospital in the middle of nowhere. They are taking Anika to visit her mother (emotionally played by Betania Cappato), who is a resident, and that changes every perception about a venal couple exploiting a child. Now we see the laughter and smiles the trio exchanges in the car, the attention and love Myriam and Roger shower on their ward. Her ESP with animals may be mostly imagination, but the scam seems fairly harmless and seems to make people happy. The ending embrace is simple and moving, closing the film on a note of love and peace.
Shooting in painterly black and white, with a marked preference for long shots, D.P. Gustavo Schiaffino idealizes the importance of nature for these characters, who like Roger are frequently caught relaxing while they scan the distant horizon. They seem to calmly accept that life is a journey, without a fixed destination. The clean, lonely notes of horn and trumpet solos sound the depth of their souls.
Director, editing: Ivan Fund
Screenwriters: Ivan Fund, Martin Felipe Castagnet
Producers: Ivan Fund, Laura Mara Tablon, Gustavo Schiaffino
Cast: Mara Bestelli, Marcelo Subiotto, Anika Bootz, Betania Cappato
Cinematography: Gustavo Schiaffino
Production design: Adrian Suarez
Costume design: Betania Cappato
Music: Mauro Mourelos
Sound: Leandro De Loredo, Omar Mustafa
Production companies: Rita Cine (Argentina), Insomnia Films (Argentina) in association with Amore Cine (Spain), Blurr Stories (Spain), Panes Contenidos (Spain), Animista Cine (Uruguay)
World sales: Luxbox
Venue: Berlin Film Festival (Competition)
In Spanish
91 minutes
