Is it necessary to practice cunning to survive in Argentina?

With Light Rain Will Come, the Argentine filmmaker Iván Fund cultivated a fairly characteristic, calm, and contained independent cinema, which used striking premises without taking the sensationalist paths of genre films. The fantastic coverage of that film gave appeal to a certain portrait and commentary on slightly strange everyday lives. The Message, winner of the jury prize at the prestigious Berlin Film Festival, is somewhat of a slightly radicalized extension of that proposal. It is about a girl who supposedly communicates with animals and who, accompanied by relatives who monetize this ability, travels by van through rural Argentina, on secondary roads, gas stations, and superstitions. Some sequences depart punctually from the narrative function and give off a certain documentary air.The black and white photography of Fund and company recalls the picaresque adventures of another road movie: Peter Bogdanovich's New Hollywood classic Paper Moon, by Peter Bogdanovich. Fund's work, however, does not stage the usual transformation or evolution of the travelers. In reality, there is not much evolution in any area, nor many adventures. The result ends up seeming like a slender and aesthetically accurate film of atmospheres, sensations, and observations in which part of a minimal story unfolds. This can cause some frustration for those who want clearer answers and more obviously climatic moments.