MAGELLAN

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In his monumental new work, acclaimed Filipino auteur Lav Diaz (NORTE, THE END OF HISTORY; EVOLUTION OF A FILIPINO FAMILY; BATANG WEST SIDE) transforms history into a stark meditation on conquest, obsession, and human frailty. Each image—precisely composed, politically charged—resonates with the weight of centuries.

Gael García Bernal disappears into the role of Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan, who, in the early 16th century, persuaded the Spanish crown to finance his voyage to Southeast Asia. Yet rather than retread the mythologized narratives of the so-called Age of Discovery, Diaz strips away legend to reveal the violent realities of colonial ambition. As Magellan and his crew chart a perilous course toward the Malayan Archipelago, the film becomes less a heroic tale than a reckoning: a vision of fragile men driven by greed and obsession, set against landscapes of overwhelming natural beauty.

Both epic and austere, Diaz’s latest opus reframes the conquest story as a haunting confrontation with history’s wounds.