Cannes 2025: Magellan movie review – Gael García Bernal plays explorer in engrossing epic
The Cannes Film Festival may be hosting yet another virtual-reality programme this year, but the most immersive event on the Croisette in the French seaside city so far has been the premiere of an old-school, two-dimensional, three-hour movie filmed in the classic 4:3 aspect ratio.
Revolving around its titular Portuguese explorer's expeditions to Southeast Asia in the early 16th century, Magellan is relentlessly engrossing – an epic in which viewers witness the distress, death and destruction brought about by one man's delusions of colonial conquest.
By presenting Ferdinand Magellan as a dogmatic, slave-owning colonialist who brooks no dissent from his quixotic mission, Filipino auteur
Lav Diaz and his Mexican lead actor Gael García Bernal have delivered a subversive portrait of a complicated figure who has long been mythologised as a benign bringer of enlightenment.
Play
Interestingly, Magellan also sets out to undermine the narrative about the explorer's misdeeds in Diaz's home country as well.
Rather than sticking to the orthodox view of Magellan's death in the Philippines as a glorious victory against colonialism, Diaz depicts indigenous chieftains as scheming manipulators who use this pigheaded white man as a pawn for their own politicking.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
South China Morning Post
4 days ago
- South China Morning Post
How this 52-year-old lost 30kg in a year with OMAD intermittent fasting and healthy habits
It may have looked like slapstick, but for stand-up comedian Maitreyi Karanth, it was not at all funny. While playing squash with a friend, she ran to get a shot and slammed into a wall, experiencing severe bleeding and bruising deep in her chest muscles. Advertisement That was in 2005. The injury took months to heal, affecting her mobility. A physically active person, Karanth was frustrated with her inability to exercise. She sought comfort in eating and, within a year, had put on 25kg (55lb). She was not particularly bothered by the extra weight – as an actor and former teacher, she had self-confidence. 'I still felt very pretty and continued to post pictures of myself on social media without feeling like I needed to hide any part of my body,' says Karanth, now 52, who was born in India and has lived in Hong Kong for 21 years. Karanth in 2019, just before she decided that she was done making excuses for her poor eating habits. Photo: Maitreyi Karanth She is also the founder of the Koma Karanth Foundation , a charity that builds homes for people in need in the Philippines. Advertisement It was only after her battered body healed, and she could play squash and hike again, that she really 'felt the brunt of those activities', she says.
South China Morning Post
5 days ago
- South China Morning Post
First professional violin maker in Malaysia on why he and his team have to be ‘crazy'
Hunched over his workbench, Tan Chin Seng shaves the wooden top plate of a violin, removing thin layers with slow, deliberate strokes. The work is meditative, out of the public eye. For Tan, transforming raw wood into a violin is a labour of artistry and love. The 45-year-old is Malaysia's first professional violin luthier – a maker of string instruments like violins, cellos and guitars. Over the past decade, he has earned international accolades. Now he is mentoring a new generation of makers in a field still little known in Southeast Asia. One of Tan's handcrafted violins. Photo: AP Traditionally, violin luthiers were associated with Europe, where masters like Antonio Stradivari and Giuseppe Guarneri shaped the modern violin.
South China Morning Post
13-07-2025
- South China Morning Post
Filipino film on South China Sea tensions wins in New Zealand despite Chinese pressure
Filipino documentary spotlighting the daily struggles of fishermen, naval cooks and coastguard personnel in the contested South China Sea has earned international recognition, with its director telling This Week in Asia that the award was a validation of honest storytelling in the face of political pressure from Beijing to cancel its screening. Food Delivery: Fresh from the West Philippine Sea took home the Tides of Change prize at the Doc Edge Festival in Auckland, New Zealand, on July 3. Directed by Baby Ruth Villarama, the film chronicles the human dimension of Manila's maritime claims, offering what she described as a 'gentle yet powerful' way of reframing geopolitical tensions. Villarama is best known for her award-winning 2016 documentary Sunday Beauty Queen about Filipino domestic workers in Hong Kong, which earned Best Picture at the Metro Manila Film Festival. Her latest film's win in New Zealand comes after it was pulled from a Philippine event earlier this year for undisclosed reasons. Just days before its scheduled premiere at Manila's Puregold CinePanalo Festival in March, the festival organiser and film producer released a joint statement confirming the movie had been pulled. 'While the decision was made jointly … it is clear that external factors played a role in this outcome,' they said, without providing further details. Baby Ruth Villarama during the filming of 'Food Delivery'. Photo: Voyage Studios Villarama told This Week in Asia the experience was disheartening, but her team 'quietly submitted' the film to overseas festivals. Doc Edge was the first to respond. 'They saw it not as a threat, but as an urgent human story worth sharing with the world and the people of New Zealand,' she said.
