The Message is a beguiling, opaque film in Competition at the Berlinale.
Lonely Road
by Alexa DalbyThe Message
3.0 out of 5.0 stars
CAUTION: Here be spoilers
The director (Iván Fund) says it’s a road movie, which it is. Strangely shot in stunning black and white, it features the wide landscapes of Argentina. Did the film very briefly lapse into colour in one scene or did my colour-starved eyes imagine it? It’s also dedicated to the director’s parents and a homage to the magic of childhood – those endless sunny days and the way things happen elliptically and half-understood as if in a dream. Maybe it’s about the journey from child to adult, from innocence to experience, or maybe it’s just about childhood.
Anika (Anika Bootz) is an innocent 9-year-old girl who lives with two much older guardians, smartly dressed Myriam (Mara Bestelli) and Roger, who doesn’t speak, (Marcelo Subiotto) in a camper van travelling round the Argentinian countryside. The sounds of the natural world are all around.
She, or maybe they, believe that she is a medium who can read the minds of dead or dying pets and transmit a message of what they want to tell their owners. This alleged – we have to take it on face value – gift is used by her guardians to eke out a subsistence living from the fees charged to worried animal lovers. But which of them really believes in it?
The Message looks mystifyingly beautiful but there’s no explanation of why or what is happening. Around halfway, they go to a remote mental facility to visit Anika’s mother, and more is revealed indirectly, half-heard and seen from a distance.
It’s a strange film, somehow compelling in its mystery. Nothing really happens explicitly, apart from Anika growing up and starting to be told not to believe in the tooth fairy. The camper van and its three occupants don’t arrive at a destination, just keep on apparently randomly travelling.
The Message had its world premiere on 18 February 2025 in Competition at the Berlin Film Festival, where it won the Jury Prize. International representation is by Luxbox.
