Magellan
Dustin Chase
You may faintly remember hearing about Ferdinand Magellan in a high school history class. You certainly won’t get much information from Lav Diaz’s new film “Magellan,” which takes a mundane approach to history. If you’ve taken a film class, however, you likely learned about “static shot,” where a filmmaker sets up the camera and all the action in a scene would occur in and out of frame. Diaz applies this unorthodox method to the entire film, which runs nearly three hours. A real test of patience for modern-day audiences. Each scene is held for longer than we are accustomed to in today’s world of quick edits that strive to maintain our eroding attention span. “Magellan” is a difficult filmmaking exercise with no payoff, entertainment value, or educational value.
Ferdinand Magellan (Gael García Bernal) was a dutiful Portuguese explorer famous for leading the first expedition to circumnavigate the Earth. He and his crew would discover lands and force them to convert to Christianity or kill them if they refused. His greatest discovery occurred in 1520, now known as the Strait of Magellan, connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Magellan acted on behalf of both his King and the Pope to enact whatever punishment, law, and sentence he saw fit to anyone he encountered. Once his dilapidated crew reached Cebu in the Philippines, Magellan’s luck would turn as the people of the island saw the conqueror for what he truly was.
Cinephiles will appreciate the difficulty Diaz has laid out for himself and crew; that same difficulty is unfortunately passed onto the viewer.
What filmmaker Lav Diaz accomplishes from a technical aspect is a marvel. Using only natural light, sounds, and minimal editing. Static shots mean rehearsal and choreography are of the utmost importance when using a stationary camera. Cinephiles will appreciate the difficulty Diaz has laid out for himself and crew; that same difficulty is unfortunately passed onto the viewer. Working with a minimal budget means we never see battles or wars that occur, only the aftermath of bodies lying around. We hear cannon fire because sound is cheap but visualizing that for this type of bare bones production is impossible. The experience is more reenactment than cinema. “Magellan” simply asks too much of its viewer to be effective.
As talented of an actor and presence as Gael García Bernal (“Y tu Mama Tambien,” “The Motorcycle Diaries”), his performance is lost beneath the beard, wide shot cinematography and what ultimately turns out to be an ambitious gimmick. No amount of gorgeously framed or lit shot in “Magellan” can make the experience worth your time. The real takeaway is how historical films that use hypothetical scenes to make these types of stories more engaging, accomplish far more in the way to curating an interest in history.
Final Thought
Final Thought – “Magellan” makes “Master & Commander” look like “The Fast & The Furious.”