Magellan – Previously Unreleased

In 1511, after a long, gruelling and arduous sea voyage, the Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan went ashore at the important trading city of Malacca in the Malay Archipelago. After all the hardships, he believes it is now time to reap all the riches of the city and the archipelago. In the name of the Spanish king, a ruthless plundering of the archipelago ensues, sparing neither person nor property. Magellan is convinced that the Asian ‘heathens’ must be converted to Christianity, and if they do not comply willingly, then by force. His violent actions not only sow fear but also trigger a series of equally violent uprisings. The situation gets the better of him.

In many quarters in Spain, Magellan is still revered as a strict yet certainly just coloniser. The Filipino director Lav Diaz, who wrote the screenplay himself, leaves little of this image intact in his epic, decolonising portrait. Magellan was a paranoid tyrant, an unscrupulous mass murderer. Gael García Bernal plays the explorer.