Magellan

Starring Gael García Bernal as Magellan, Lav Diaz revisits the life of the Portuguese explorer from a resolutely political perspective. Stripping away heroic myth, the film centres on power, conquest and consequence. In Diaz’s austere, meditative style, the figure of Magellan becomes a lens on colonial legacy and its enduring effects.

Rebuffed by the Portuguese king, Ferdinand Magellan (Gael Garcia Bernal) sets sail to the Spice Islands with the support of the Spanish crown. His years-long voyage across uncharted waters, marred by mistrust, mutiny and madness, profoundly changes the nature of his quest.

Lav Diaz’s Magellan represents an epic new entry in a filmography that has never been short on scale or ambition. Where Diaz’s formidable body of work so far has offered a trenchant examination of 20th century Filipino history and its effect on the national spirit, his new film harks back to the country’s pre-colonial, pre-Christian past, to the “discovery” of the Philippines by European navigators.

The filmmaker’s first biopic, and his first feature in colour since Norte, the End of History (IFFR 2014), Magellan charts the Portuguese explorer’s shifting aspirations, from a thirst for earthly knowledge to a fanatic obligation to the heavens. Developed in his signature aesthetic of static, painterly master shots, Diaz’s seafaring saga refuses both action spectacle and easy psychological identification. The approach is instead dispassionate, the mood meditative, and the emphasis on the loneliness and despair consuming Magellan’s enterprise. 

Propelled by Gael Garcia Bernal’s stately lead performance, Magellan expands Diaz’s unique style while deepening his longstanding inquiry into the influence of power, on its wielders and victims alike.

– Srikanth Srinivasan 

• 

• 

• 

•