Culture
Now Playing: ‘Magellan’ is a memorable movie about the horrors of colonialism
By: Gordon Briggs
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Sometimes even the most well-intentioned film can make the horrors of history look entertaining.
Whether it’s the allure of high-seas adventures, war films that take us to ancient battlefields, or stories of indigenous people fighting back against colonizers, historical dramas often must sideline the brutal realities of history in favor of the entertainment demands of their genre.
Thankfully, Magellan is a different type of movie. Taking on the story of one of history’s most infamous explorers, the film can be brutal, beautiful, and beguiling. In short, Magellan is a strange movie that stuck with me long after I saw it.
With precise attention to detail and setting, Filipino filmmaker Lav Diaz chronicles the exploits of Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan, tracing his 16th-century voyage to the Malay Archipelago and his role in the early, but brutal, colonization of the land. As the story continues, it effectively depicts the expedition as a brutal journey of colonial expansion, focusing on the violence, obsession, and cultural clashes that were all done in the name of God and empire.
What’s different is the peculiar way Diaz tells this story.
I’m not going to lie, when the movie started, I was bored. Diaz’s direction favors sequences that are slow and still, creating images that resemble Renaissance paintings, to craft a more contemplative tone. For example, the film features a distinctive, minimalist soundscape that eschews a traditional musical score in favor of ambient sounds that emphasize the natural environment and the brutal reality of colonization.
That choice can create a somewhat alienating viewing experience due to a lack of traditional musical cues. However, as the story went on, that choice that was once alienating became immersive.
Visually, Magellan feels less like a globe-trotting adventure and more like a film that forces you to watch a genocide as if it were a passing storm. In filming Magellan’s conquest, the camera rarely moves, and when it does, the movement is minimal, creating a stillness that focuses the viewer’s gaze intensely on the frame.
Specifically, by focusing on the aftermath of violence
Rather than action, I felt like I was a visitor from another world watching the aftermath of a great war.
The film even lets us understand the explorer’s twisted mindset as he thinks he is doing God’s work. As Magellan claims to bring salvation to this world, we see how only destruction follows.
Rather than focus on the catharsis of destruction, Diaz focuses on the aftermath of certain events. The movie gives us disturbing images of countless native bodies littering the foreground and background. The jungle is beautiful but also sweltering and unforgiving, and both sides cry upward, begging their Gods for mercy.
While films about colonization aren’t new, I don’t want the audience to think the violence is only done against the indigenous population. The movie examines Magellan’s harsh treatment of his own crew. For instance, the film presents the long, three-year, disease-blighted journey through the Pacific not as a grand adventure, but as a slow, agonizing trip, filled with famine, mutinies, and severe punishment.
The movie was playing in theaters earlier this year, but should arrive on streaming soon. For those looking for a different kind of historical drama, I encourage you to seek it out. ★★★½