'Màquina' Review: A Family Road Trip That Demands We Listen
Joaquim Adrià Pujol films his father and brother on a journey toward addiction treatment, and asks what it means to accompany someone without claiming their struggle as your own.
“It’s not about my expectations. It’s about your journey,” a younger man tells an older one in “Màquina.” The line stayed with me because it describes the experience of watching Joaquim Adrià Pujol’s documentary: being invited into a family’s journey while knowing that neither they nor we can dictate its outcome.
Pujol follows his father, Xavi Pujol Berlanga, and brother, Marcel Enric Pujol, as they cross the American West in an aging Winnebago, bound for ibogaine-assisted addiction treatment in Colorado. The trip brings alcoholism, codependency, and generational trauma into close quarters. Because Pujol is filming his own family, the camera is never simply an observer. He has a stake in what happens, even as he gives his father and brother room to speak for themselves.
That closeness makes “Màquina” hard to look away from. Its silences hold as much tension as its arguments; humor and tenderness surface without settling anything. The Winnebago breaks down repeatedly, but Pujol does not need to press the parallel between the vehicle and the family. Both are trying to keep moving, and neither journey is smooth.
The film also makes you consider how quickly hearing can be mistaken for listening. I found myself attending not only to what was said, but to the pauses before an answer and the expectations each person brought to the conversation. There is something hypnotic about Xavi’s eyes, and about his slow, methodical way of speaking and moving. Pujol’s steady framing lets us stay with him. The camera work is especially assured for a film made on such a modest, personal scale.
“Màquina” does not present psychedelic-assisted treatment as a cure or shape the trip into a neat account of recovery. It remains with the harder question of what it takes to attempt change, and what loving someone through addiction can cost. I felt the invitation in that opening line deeply: to witness another person’s journey without making it about my hopes for them. The film left me still, waiting to hear my own answers.
“Màquina” screened at the 2026 Brooklyn Film Festival and had its Los Angeles premiere at the Indiewood Film Festival. A distributor or public streaming, rental, or theatrical release could not be verified as of September 29, 2026. More information is available on the
film’s website
“An intimate documentary that is hard to look away from. ‘Màquina’ left me still, waiting to hear my own answers.”
— Lapacazo Sandoval, AmNews Curtain Raiser
Credits
Director: Joaquim Adrià Pujol
Producer: Vesta Tučkute
Cast: Marcel Enric Pujol, Xavi Pujol Berlanga, Joaquim Adrià Pujol
Cinematographer: Joaquim Adrià Pujol
No comments:
Post a Comment