Gael García Bernal slowly becomes a covetous conquerer in ‘Magellan’

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Filipino director Lav Diaz, known for his long, deliberate films (like the four-hour “Norte, The End of History”), tackles the story of colonialism with unflinching honesty in his latest work, “Magellan.” The 163-minute epic, featuring Gael García Bernal as the explorer Ferdinand Magellan, doesn’t glorify conquest. Instead, it presents a stark and unsettling look at the greed and brutality behind it, while also hinting at the strangeness of the whole undertaking. It’s a challenging film that aims to rewrite the traditional, often romanticized, story of exploration and power.

Director Lav Diaz has created a beautiful and mesmerizing film about time, using long, carefully composed shots and demanding the viewer’s full attention. While those familiar with Diaz’s slow, thoughtful style will appreciate ‘Magellan,’ it’s also a great starting point for anyone new to his unique and uncompromising filmmaking.

In a beautiful rainforest river, an Indigenous woman searches for something, then falls to the ground, shaken by what she’s seen. She urgently warns her community: “A white man is here!” The scene cuts to a devastating sight: bodies scattered on the beaches and throughout the lush landscape of the Malaysian peninsula, which had recently been taken over by the Portuguese in 1511.

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Ferdinand Magellan was a relatively minor player in Spain’s colonial efforts at the time, but he dreamed of leading his own expeditions. His motivations, however, weren’t solely about wealth, unlike some of his commanders – one famously slurred in a celebratory speech, while drunk, about conquering the world and eliminating Islam before collapsing. Ultimately, the drive to control and dominate has a profound and damaging effect on people.

I have to say, the film really gets under your skin. We meet Magellan a few years after being rejected by his king, and he’s down on his luck, wandering Lisbon. He eventually convinces Spain to fund his ambitious voyage to find a new route to the spice islands, a journey that sadly means leaving his pregnant wife, Beatriz, behind. But it’s the depiction of that multi-year journey itself – a nearly 45-minute sequence – that truly stays with you. It’s brutally honest, showing the paranoia, hallucinations, sickness, starvation, and sheer desperation of those sailors. It’s a mesmerizingly harsh experience, though still punctuated by moments of natural beauty. The director masterfully uses sound – you practically start listening for the cries of seabirds, anticipating that desperate shout of ‘Land!’ There’s no manipulative music or over-the-top drama here, just incredibly patient and powerful filmmaking. It’s slow cinema, yes, but it’s viscerally gripping.

The film establishes the complex psychology of Magellan, showing how his intense curiosity becomes twisted into a forceful desire to convert people to Christianity – a misguided goal that the director interprets through a unique historical lens. Until this point, actor Aaron Bernal portrays this internal shift with remarkable nuance, captured through long, captivating shots – often filmed from unusual angles – by director Lav Diaz and cinematographer Artur Tort, without relying on typical close-ups.

The film “Magellan” sharply contrasts the mindset of Magellan with the story of Enrique (Arjay Babon), a Malay slave who becomes a translator. Enrique’s journey is a deeply moving depiction of feeling lost and disconnected. Throughout the film, cries of sorrow are frequent – from Enrique when he’s alone, from the Indigenous people begging for assistance, and even from the wives in Portugal anxiously awaiting news of their husbands. The film deliberately slows down time to emphasize the lasting pain caused by colonialism, focusing on a powerful and untamable beauty.

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2026-01-10 01:32