Magellan Review

Lav Diaz Issues a Bold Challenge to Question History as It's Written

By: Marc Kozak

Magellan

Lav Diaz Issues a Bold Challenge to Question History as It's Written

By: Marc Kozak

Ferdinand Magellan is one of those names we learned back in history class, and most of us can dutifully recall that he’s known as the first person to circumnavigate the globe. Beyond that, a mystery. So much a mystery, in fact, that it’s probably not common knowledge that Magellan never personally completed the full trip; he died before the voyage was completed by what was left of his crew.

For Filipino filmmaker Lav Diaz, Magellan’s story is more than a piece of historical trivia — it’s a fixture in the cultural history of his people. As part of the first wave of white men to come to their shores, Magellan’s arrival in 1521 changed everything in the Philippines. His expedition brought violence, colonial exploitation, and forced Christianity to the region, with the latter remaining the predominant religion in the country to this day, followed ardently by around 89% of the population.

Magellan is Diaz’s attempt at demythologizing the Portuguese conquistador, a hypnotic and unflinching saga that is light on action and heavy on consequence. This isn’t one of those Hollywood historical epics like Gladiator or even Master and Commander. Nor is it even a standard historical account of events, one that simply recounts the blow-by-blow details of what went down. Instead, Diaz gives us a series of lengthy snapshots of the moments after or to the side of key moments in history, often wordless tableaux with no camera movement, forcing the viewer to reflect on the kind of horrors that don’t often get mentioned in the history books.

Known as one of the key figures of the slow cinema movement, Diaz has made a celebrated career out of long, novelistic works that linger on a frame for long periods of time (he’s made more than a few movies that run over seven hours). In this case, Diaz manages to whittle 15 hours of footage down into a relatively slim 160 minutes, resulting in one of his most accessible works by default.

" The movie is a series of lengthy snapshots of the moments after or to the side of key moments in history, forcing the viewer to reflect on the kind of horrors that don’t often get mentioned in the history books.  "

After a haunting opening scene of a Malay woman spotting the first white man like he’s a monster out of a horror movie, we sit with a long shot of corpses arranged around a beach, the result of the Portuguese conquest of Malacca (now Malaysia) in 1511. The waves slowly lap against the bodies, who bleed red into the gentle tide. Slowly, a body begins to stir. It’s Magellan (played by Gael García Bernal), a soldier under someone else’s command, injured in a battle for control of the narrow strait that controlled seagoing trade between China and India. Magellan returns to his home country, his cabin full with his new Cebuano slave Enrique (Amado Arjay Babon) and his head full of dreams of riches and conquest. He begs King Manuel of Portugal to let him attempt an unheard-of westward journey to the Spice Islands, reasoning that it would lead to more territories and more Christian conversions.

He complains to the poet Francisco de Sá de Miranda (Paulo Calatré) that his pleas have been not only rejected by the king, but that he’s been effectively ostracized due to his annoying persistence. The poet attempts to appeal to Magellan’s sense of morality, asking him if his quest is really worth the death of so many people “in the name of the crown and God.” Magellan has no such concerns, and even heads to Spain to try and find some other ruler that might grant him the ships needed for his “holy” mission.

This eventually works out for him, of course, and the second act of the movie shows snippets of the five-ship fleet making the treacherous journey around South America and onwards to the Philippines. This section of the movie feels a bit more constrained than you might expect, perhaps due to the difficulties of filming on a restored replica of one of the actual ships used in Magellan’s voyage. There are no epic, zoomed-out shots of the ships in motion over the roiling ocean; the ships are mostly stationary and much of the action is shot tight in on the characters, either lying about on the deck or below decks, often in sickness and misery. Still, these scenes look beautiful and add to the sense of danger and solitude that existed during Magellan’s lengthy journey.

Eventually the beleaguered crew arrive on the island of Cebu and are met with friendship by the local tribe. With Enrique translating, Magellan cures a sick village boy by giving him fruit but attributes the event to a small statue of Jesus, triggering wild celebrations amongst the tribe and a willingness to convert to Christianity. This initial curiosity quickly wears off after Magellan and crew burn carvings of their native spirits, warning them that they must submit to Jesus or else face the consequences. In a move that has already caused quite a stir amongst locals and historians, Diaz portrays the chieftain Lapulapu as nothing more than a myth made to frighten Magellan, citing the lack of primary sources that claim Lapulapu was a real historical figure. Either way, things culminate in a battle (that we don’t actually see) that seals the fate of Magellan and most of his crew.

The island setting in these final acts is an Eden covered in sunlight, lush in green and flourishing with plentiful water and animals. It’s a strikingly beautiful natural setting, magnifying the ugliness of Magellan and his men, covered in steel helmets and lavish clothing. The invading men are just that – invaders – uninterested in the ways of the locals, seeing them as nothing but creatures to be tamed. Gael García Bernal’s performance never depicts Magellan as a crazed, power-hungry villain – Diaz’s story is too perceptive for that. We see him break into tears at the sight of the sick child, clearly moved by human suffering. And yet, he is consumed by his “holy” cause, unable to imagine that he might encounter resistance.

There are a few subplots that could have done with some more time left on the burner. The inner conflict of the slave Enrique, who ended up having a large part in Magellan’s downfall, could have been its own movie; instead, we rarely see much of this until the movie’s very last scene. Magellan’s rarely seen wife, Beatriz (Ângela Azevedo), is used as a specter that briefly haunts Magellan with the life he’s missing at home as a result of his quest, but she is not much of a character otherwise. Both of these characters likely had lots of footage cut from the final product; there’s still a small chance that Diaz will use the hours of footage to construct a better story for them as well.

Still, Diaz’s Magellan is a unique and bold way to tell what likely would’ve been a fairly predictable biopic in someone else’s hands. It’s an invitation to a dialogue about what we consider history, and a challenge to those who are all too willing to accept the narrative written by the Western world.