Bernal transforms, the weather changes, and the journey is beautifully presented.
We know that Ferdinand Magellan was a Portuguese explorer, whose expedition was to sail around the world, but he died before his sailors could finish the job. We also know during that, he traveled to the Spice Islands of Maluku to open a new trading route to Spain, and how he was a hated man by his crew.
His biopic “Magellan” is the kind of film when I think the reason why it’s so long (running for 2 hours and 40 minutes) is because of the long shots of beautifully shot landscapes. There are cloudy skies, rainy rivers, and a foggy atmosphere. I’d say each time lasts about 3-5 minutes and it happens a lot. It often feels so relaxing, like those YouTube videos where it rains and snows for hours, and they’re supposed to help people sleep. But I didn’t sleep.
I was also able to see its complex dramatization of how Magellan (Gael Garcia Bernal, a Mexican actor who learned to speak Portuguese) was caught in the middle of greed, ambition, power, and curiosity. In this movie, we see how his crew was executed either through homosexuality or mutiny. The time, of course, is the 16th century. And he buys a Cebuano slave whom he names Enrique (Amado Arjay Babon), who secretly keeps his religious beliefs in tact, and whom Magellan takes on his circumnavigation.
And we also get some ghostly dream scenes with his wife Beatriz (Angela Azevedo) telling him that their infant son has died and that she also died, too. You can tell they’re ghostly by the white light that outlines her. And in real life, he never knew about their deaths. I guess the movie likes to assume he found out in those dream sequences, and even Bernal was perplexed about how Magellan would know about their deaths and went along with it. And IMDB also labels the film as a romance, and suggests it focuses on their marriage, and even the Filipino director Lav Diaz (“The Woman Who Left,” “Season of the Devil”) was inspired by her story. But it’s more of a subplot than a main story.
The filming locations of “Magellan” took place in Sampaloc and Mauban towns in Quezon, Philippines, Southern Portugal, and Cadiz, Spain. In most cast, movies set in crappy weather would have green screens. But watching the rain, clouds, and fog in this movie, I’m unconvinced green screens were used. It all looks genuine. And maybe it was. After all, Diaz fell ill with tuberculosis at the time of filming.
On par with movies like “Amores Perros” and “Babel,” Bernal delivers another human performance, as the actor acknowledges Magellan’s ethnicity and personality, and he never overexploits it. I met him at a special screening of that film, and during his interview with Kelli Weston, he shared his acknowledgements. And he’s also levitated by fine supporting work from Azevedo and Babon, who respectively express their dialogue through passion and pathos.
And we also see the inhabitants of the Cebu island, and how they express their religious beliefs, including the mythological creature-the Lapu-Lapu. And that becomes a pivotal moment in the story. And some people were either fluent in the Cebuano language or had to learn it. Therefore, the film respects the cultures and discriminates nobody. That’s how authentic it wants to be.
Diaz also did the editing and cinematography with Artur Tort, and everyone and everything is radiantly presented. It all feels authentic and well-acted, and even though it’s long, it’s quite affective and keeps you watching.
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