Reviews & Articles

The AICAHK website rarely runs film reviews, but this film from Argentina shown at the 2025 HKIFF, coincided with the death of Pope Francis, who was from Argentina and the election of Leo, who worked as a missionary in Peru for twenty years.  請向下捲動閱讀中文版

Image above: Nine-year old Anika (Anika Booz) photographed by Myriam (Mara Bestelli) in front of an animal cemetery in Iván Fund's The Message (Image: courtesy of Cineuropa magazine)

Film review

by John Batten   ( 請向下捲動閱讀中文版 )

The Message (Spanish: El mensaje)

Director: Iván Fund 

Argentina/Spain/Uruguay, 2025, 90 minutes

A deserved winner of this year’s Silver Bear Jury Prize at the Berlin Film Festival and screened at the 2025 Hong Kong International Film Festival (HKIFF), Argentine director Iván Fund describes his film The Message (2025) as a “road movie,” He explains that, “..it is definitely a road movie, since drama is by definition a journey, someone being on the road.”

A couple, Roger and Myriam – aged approximately in their late 50s - and a nine-year old girl, Anika, travel around the Argentine’s Entre Rios countryside visiting small towns in a campervan. The film slowly unwinds amidst daily life, meals, spare conversations, and the intermittent playing of the Pet Shop Boys’ uplifting but poignant Always on My Mind. It is the gentlest of road movies; there are no long stretches of road or great revelations, and self-discovery is a week’s growing-up for Anika bracketed by two of her baby teeth falling out.

Through skillful inference and careful camera-work, we come to know more about this not-quite-family. The opening scenes, with little dialogue or explanation, set the story. A late night visit to the campervan by a man wanting Anika to talk to his pet turtle. Myriam photographing Anika beside a sign for an animal cemetery, then photographed next to a pet’s gravestone. Later, a short sequence follows Roger and Anika scrambling through a cornfield stealing ripe corn cobs, emerging with an armful back to a waiting Myriam in the campervan. Another early shot sees Myriam helping Anika wash herself in an outdoor camping-style shower, a little later we see Anika knocking repeatedly on the campervan door asking to be let in after being locked out by the couple.

From their campervan, Roger and Myriam run a clairvoyance business using Anika’s telepathic abilities with animals. Myriam is often on her phone, typing out messages and talking to clients, reporting the results of Anika’s communications with their animal, including those recently deceased. Roger multi-tasks as the van’s driver and handles all invoicing and payments. Clients seek out Anika’s services through advertisements on the Internet, social media, and local TV news reports about her abilities. Myriam is heard later explaining to a customer that being able to talk to animals is a “special ability that runs through the female members of the family.”

Anika addresses Roger and Myriam by their first names, implying that the couple are not her parents; more like guardians, perhaps. At all times the trio have a close, gentle, loving and respectful relationship with each other. However, the film conveys an undercurrent of insecurity. Anika has much free time and receives no obvious formal schooling; and, the family have little money and every successful business transaction is completed with obvious relief.

In between meeting clients and their animals, we witness the family’s circus-like wanderings and relaxed daily routines. Brief anecdotal-like scenes also add to the overall story, such as when an intrigued Anika finds a set of old photographs of a much-younger Roger dressed as a clown.  

We know more about the family during the only intentional side-trip taken by the trio to a remote countryside psychiatric facility. At the entrance, the security guard asks what is their relationship to the patient they wish to see. Myriam answers with a sideways glance at Roger (implying that her reply could be a lie, we are uncertain), “I’m her mother.”  

Inside, waiting and seated on a courtyard bench, a young woman joyfully talks with and hugs Anika, saying, “You’ve grown so big!” The scene is brief and we aren’t privy, yet, to their possible real relationship.

In an interview in the online Cineuropa magazine, Iván Fund explains that his ideas about family are similar to those of the Japanese director, Hirokazu Kore-eda, whose recent films Shoplifters (2018) and Monster (2023) are centred on ambiguous family and interpersonal relationships. Fund believes that “…what family really means is the act of being present.” He says of The Message that the audience is “never sure about (the characters’) real relationship, but their feelings are very noble and very true.” These intentional ambiguities are more intriguing by knowing the characters’ real off-screen relationships. The actors Mara Bestelli (Myriam) and Marcelo Subiotto (Roger) are partners in real life. The young Anika in the film is Anika Booz, Fund’s step-daughter and daughter of his partner Betania Cappato, who plays the woman - Anika’s presumed on-screen mother - in the psychiatric hospital.

In this slow, sensitive sketch of a family in vague – possibly temporary - states of change and personal recovery, Fund expertly develops a story, and stories, showing relationships are delicate and nuanced, rather than fixed or stereotypical. The film’s ambiguities push the viewer to appreciate the individuality of each character, and with deft direction his film is never sentimental or mushy: ensured by Anika’s accomplished poise and only brief walk-on parts for the animals that Anika communicates with.

Anika’s telepathy is a storyline that runs throughout the film, with something of the fantastic present, but her character is not defined by that special ability. Indeed, Anika appears reluctant when asked to communicate with a client’s pet. Instead, the film portrays Anika as having an endearing youthful sensitivity. Two incidents highlight this. Anika briefly meets and talks to a horse in a field, but rather than this being seen as exceptional it is shown as similar to the daily pet conversations that people have with their cats or dogs - or horses! Also, seemingly semi-daydreaming, a brief scene shows Anika casually allowing a beetle or cockroach to move over and between her fingers. Her abilities with animals, even cockroaches, appears governed by her being calm, sensitive, observant and inquisitive.  

Anika has insight of the real world and at times her own thoughts are spoken through her readings. She is asked by an owner to enquire about her cat’s “real thoughts.” Looking carefully at the imperious grey cat, Anika tells the woman that the cat has recently seen a couple and some unusual, sneaky behaviour in a back-room. The cat’s owner considers this carefully and nods knowingly. In coded language, the straight-faced Anika is referring to being locked-out and Myriam and Roger’s quick private tryst in the campervan of a few days earlier. The surprised Myriam glances at an equally surprised Roger - Anika is no naïf!

The film’s final scenes bring the film full circle. Anika confides to Myriam that at the hospital her mother had asked Anika to tell Myriam that “she loved her.” By implication, but still with a touch of doubt, Myriam is confirmed as Anika’s grand-mother. They warmly, and for Myriam emotionally, hug and hold each other. One of the film’s final scenes see the trio happily eating corncobs for dinner – thus, establishing an approximate time-line of about a week since the film’s opening scenes. The final credits roll and the song plays again, as Iván Fund explains, it is Anika’s “comfort song”: 

“…You were always on my mind
You were always on my mind

Maybe I didn't treat you quite as good as I should
Maybe I didn't love you quite as often as I could
Maybe I didn't hold you all those lonely, lonely times
And I guess I never told you, I''m so happy that you're mine….”

電影評論

文：約翰百德 (John Batten)

《聽牠怎麼說》

導演：伊凡芬

阿根廷／西班牙／烏拉圭，2025年，90分鐘

阿根廷導演伊凡芬在今年柏林影展實至名歸榮獲評審團大獎銀熊獎的新作《聽牠怎麼說》（2025年）於本屆香港國際電影節放映。導演形容這部作品是一部「公路電影，因為戲劇本身就是一趟旅程，是某人踏上的旅途」。

電影講述羅杰與美莉安這對年約五十多歲的伴侶，帶著九歲的女孩安妮卡，駕駛露營車在阿根廷恩特雷里奧斯省的鄉間小鎮遊走。電影在日常瑣事、用餐、簡短的對話，以及間中響起的Pet Shop Boys既振奮人心卻又帶點哀愁的版本《Always on My Mind》（一直在我心頭）聲音中，緩緩展開。這是一部最溫婉的公路電影，沒有漫長的旅程，亦沒有驚天的發現，而所謂的自我成長，對阿妮卡而言，只是短短一週的蛻變，由她兩隻乳齒的脫落作為開端與收結。

在細膩的暗示與鏡頭下，觀眾會慢慢發現這三個人「不太像一家人」。開場的幾個片段都沒什麼對白。有一名男子深夜敲露營車門，要安妮卡與他的烏龜對話；美莉安幫安妮卡在寵物墓園的招牌前和墓碑旁拍照；羅杰與安妮卡鑽進粟米田偷摘粟米，抱著滿懷粟米返回露營車；還有美莉安在露營花灑下幫安妮卡洗澡的片段；之後就見到安妮卡被反鎖在車外，連番拍門求進。

原來羅杰與美莉安是在露營車上經營傳心生意，靠安妮卡與動物傳心維生。美莉安經常用手機與客人溝通，把安妮卡與寵物（甚至已逝動物）的對話內容轉述給他們。羅杰則兼任司機，並處理帳務。客人是看到網上廣告而找到他們，本地電視新聞也曾報道過安妮卡的感應能力。美莉安向一位客人解釋，能與動物傳心是「女性家族成員相傳的特殊天賦」。

安妮卡直呼羅杰與美莉安的名字，暗示二人並非她的父母，而比較像監護人，但三人仍維持著親密、有愛與互相尊重的關係。不過，電影亦暗示了彼此之間不安全感的暗湧。安妮卡的空閒時間很多，似乎沒有接受過正規教育。家庭經濟拮据，每次生意成功收款都如釋重負。

在與客人和動物接觸的場景之間，觀眾還能看到三人如馬戲團般的流浪生活與悠閒日常，以及一些零碎但有意義的小片段，例如安妮卡發現羅杰年輕時裝扮成小丑的舊照片。

三人唯一一次刻意的「支線旅程」，是到訪偏遠的精神病院。保安員在入口處問起他們與病人的關係，美莉安側目望向羅杰後回答：「我是她母親。」（語氣暗示這或許是謊言）。

在院內，一名年輕女子坐在庭院的長椅上，興奮地擁抱安妮卡並說道：「你長大了！」那一幕很短暫，觀眾至此仍未能確知她們之間的真實關係。

伊凡芬在《Cineuropa》的訪問中解釋，他的家庭觀與日本導演是枝裕和相近，後者在《小偷家族》（2018年）與《怪物》（2023年）中均探討模糊的家庭與人際關係。伊凡芬認為：「家庭真正的意義在於陪伴。」他談到《聽牠怎麼說》時說：「觀眾無法確定（角色的）真正關係，但他們的情感是非常高尚而真實的。」這些刻意的模糊，因著演員於現實世界的關係而更耐人尋味。飾演美莉安與羅杰的瑪拉．貝斯特利與馬些路．蘇比奧托在現實中是伴侶；安妮卡由伊凡芬的繼女、伊凡芬的伴侶貝塔尼亞．卡帕托的女兒安妮卡．布茨飾演；貝塔尼亞．卡帕托則在電影中飾演精神病院裡的女子，暗示她即是安妮卡的母親。

這部電影緩慢而細膩地描繪了一個處於（可能只是暫時）曖昧變化與個人療癒狀態的家庭。伊凡芬刻劃的故事微妙細膩，不流於刻板的模式，推動觀眾去欣賞每一個角色的獨特性。而在導演的巧妙掌控下，這部電影不流於感傷或矯情，這既歸功於安妮卡沉著而成熟的表現，也因為與她交流的動物只短暫的出場點綴。

雖然安妮卡的傳心能力貫穿整部電影，帶有奇幻元素，但她的角色並沒有受這能力定型，更在幫客人傳心的時候顯得有點不情願。電影所著墨的，反而是她敏感細膩的童心，兩個情節尤其凸顯這一點。有一次，她與田裡短暫地與一匹馬相遇交流，但場景呈現得如同人與寵物日常對話般自然。另一幕則見她若有所思，讓甲蟲或蟑螂在她指間爬行。她面對動物，即使是蟑螂時的冷靜、敏感、專注與好奇，正是她的能力所在。

安妮卡對現實世界亦充滿洞察力，偶爾會藉動物傳心而說出自己內心所想。一位貓主人向她查問貓的「真實想法」。她凝視著高傲的灰貓，告訴女主人牠最近看見一對男女在後房有些偷偷摸摸的奇怪舉動，女主人若有所思地點頭。其實是安妮卡暗指自己幾日前被鎖在車外，而羅杰與美莉安則在露營車內私會。美莉安與羅杰聞言驚訝對望，知道安妮卡並不是想像中的天真無邪。

影片結尾呼應開頭。安妮卡告訴美莉安，她的母親在醫院裡託她轉達一句「她愛妳」，含蓄地暗示（雖仍存疑）美莉安其實是安妮卡的婆婆。二人真誠擁抱，美莉安更顯得激動。最後，三人開心地享用粟米晚餐，正好與開場偷粟米的片段呼應，構成約一星期的時間線。片尾字幕升起，安妮卡的「安慰之歌」再次響起：

「……你一直在我心頭

你一直在我心頭

也許我未曾如應有般善待你

也許我未曾如應有般頻頻表達我的愛意

也許在那些孤寂無依的時刻

我沒有將你緊緊擁抱

而我想我從未告訴過你

能擁有你是我無比的幸福」