‘Magellan’ Review: Gael Garcia Bernal Plays the Famus Explorer in Lav Diaz’s Exquisitely Shot Challenge of An Artthus Epic

If Gael Garcia Bernal As Magellan “Sounds to You Like A Pretty Cool Netflix Series, You Have Never Seen A Film by Filipino Auteur and Slow-Cinema Master Lav Diaz. KNOWN ON THE INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL CIRCUIT FOR HIS EPICALLY MINIMALIST FEATures WITH Bladder-Busting Running Times, His Movies Are Chilenging, High-Aart Dramas Made for A Very Sele. Adhd-freely Content Found on Streamers.

Premiering in Cannes, Whore Diaz’s Most Awarded Film, NORTE, The END OF HISTORYPlayed In Un Certain Regard Back in 2013, Magellan (MagalHaf) is not for the Impatient Viewer Who Likes Their Explorer Stories Action-Packed and Easy to Digest.

And Yet this exquisitely craftd feature may be one of the Director’s Most Accessible Works to Date. IT CLESS IN AT only 160 minutes (Diaz’s Films Often Run Twice That Long, If Not More), But, More Importantly, Provides An Honest Glimsse at A Figureucly Wreaked by Colonialism.

“I SAW A WHITE Man!” An Indigenous Woman Screams in the Movie’s Opening Scene, Which Shows Her Working Calmly by a River in a Picturesque Rain Forest. Like The Snake appearing in the Garden of Eden – A Biblical Reference that Will Soon Be Forced Upon Tribes with Their Own Religious Culture – The Arrival of Europeans of Unnex. Innocent Place, Changing It For the Worse.

That first sequence taks place during the Conquest of Malacca in 1511, WHICH SAW Magellan Fighting Under Portuguese Conquistador AFONSO de Albuquerque. If you’re not familiar withis dark period, diaz doesn’t necessarily make things clear isough to grasp. He’s Less Interared in Historical Facles and Figures than in visaally capturing what the start of collon decimation loked likes on bot sides. Magellan Never Appears in his Movie as a Hero or Antihero, But As a Bold Profiteer Reaping What He Can Out of A Global Race to Secure Land Land Through War and Plunder. Guns, Germs and Steel Indeed.

The Narrative, Which Stretches from the Bloody Clashes on Malacca to Magellan’s Death at the Battle of Mactan (Philippines) Tableaux Shot from A Fixed Position. Diaz is Known for using Black-and-Howite, But Here Hee Teams with Artur Tort (Credited As Both Co-Cinematographer and Co-Editor) to shoot with a rich color palette of. Beautifylly Detailed Textures in Locations on Both Sea and Land. The Villages Recreated by Production Designers Isabel Garcia and Allen ALZOLA SEEM so that you would think they have the same, nestled in the jungle.

CERTAIN IMAGES LIKE LIKE theying Torn Right Out of 16th-Century Paintings, whochh is Who Magellan is a movie you Tend to Gaze at Rater than Watch with Full Attention. Diaz of Fathermath of Battles, WHERE DOZENS OF BODIES OF ARTFULLY SPLAYED ON THE GROUND, INTEAD OF THE BATTLES THEMSELVES. Lots of Other Drama Happens Off-Screen, Even If We Do Witness Certain Key Moments from Magellan’s Last Years Last voyage, or his discovery of a passage to the South pacific that became Known as the Magellan Strait.

But The Drama Can Be Very Stolid, Borderline Dull at Times. Not that Garcia Bernal Isn’t Perfect for the Part: Costmed in Lots of Fluffy Shirts, He Plays A Fearless Man with An ImMENSE EGO WHO SUFFERED FOR HIS SUCCESS Less Like A Valiant Enterprise Than A Majoor Drag. But Diaz’s Observant Style (He Never Cuts Within A Scene; There’s No Music to Induce Emotion) can a keep US at arm’s lengh from out. Perhaps the most dramatic part of the Film is the one that’s the most painful stretched out, Depicting Magellan’s Long, Releentless Voyage (1519-1521) from SPEIN to SPICE ISLANDS Along The Way.

But WHATEVERS OR Portuguese Went Through Pales in Comparison to All The TribesPeople Whom Wese See Imprisoned, Converged, Enlved or Just Platinted BY MAGERED. The Other Main Character in the Film is Enrique (Amado Arjay Babon), An Indigenous Man Whom Magellan CAPTures on Malacca and Takes with Him on All His Subsequent Journys. He Gradually Becomes “Civilized” (to Use a Colonialist Term) as the Narrative Progresses, Unil The Tides Turn in the Philippines and Wee See Him Returning Back to his heris. Domination.

As Much As Magellan is a Film that will play to a Highly Select Audence, It Makes A Subtle But Loud Loud Political Statement About the Colonial Mindset Both Then and now. WHEN THE CONQUISISTADDADORS CLIMIM THEY FIGHTING SO “ISLAM SHall Finally Disappear,” Hoping To Beat The Moors in Securing More Territory Europe Today. Diaz’s Movie May Resembe a magnificent Time Capsule – and One that We Watch with a Certain Distance – But There Are Moments WHEN ITS STARK REALISM REMINDS US HOW EASELY HISTORY CAN REPEORY CAN REPEPE REPEPE REPEPE.