Synopsis:
Calgary Cinematheque Presents: Magellan (2025)
At the dawn of the modern era, Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan leads an expedition under the Spanish crown in search of the first westward route to the Spice Islands. He embarks on a perilous journey across the uncharted Pacific, where his fleet faces starvation, mutiny, and the psychological toll of endless seas. Upon reaching the shores of Cebu, Magellan is pulled into a fatal conflict with the natives by his drive to spread Catholicism, culminating in his tragic doom.
Shot on location in the Philippines, Portugal, and Spain, Lav Diaz's revisionist take on the famous voyage of Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan examines the Christian zealotry that fueled the Imperialist Age of Discovery. A masterpiece of the slow cinema movement, featuring beautiful cinematography in classic Academy ratio by Arthur Tort (Pacifiction, Afternoons of Solitude), the film is the result of seven years of historical research into Magellan and the major figures of his life, such as his wife Beatriz and his enemy, the mysterious Lapulapu. Featuring a career best performance from Gael García Bernal, Magellan is the most accessible film of Diaz's body of work, but is no less rigorously constructed, politically aware, and meditative in its deconstruction of Western mythograph.
Genre: Adventure, Drama
Director: Lav Diaz
Stars: Gael García Bernal, Angela Azevedo Ramos, Amado Arjay Babon
Running time: 2 hr 40 min
Rating: 14A (Nudity, Violence)
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