In the 16th century, Ferdinand Magellan, a young and ambitious Portuguese navigator, rebels against the power of the King of Portugal, who doesn’t his dream of discovering the world, and persuades the Spanish monarchy to fund his bold expedition to the fabled lands of the East.
마젤란
Cannes Film Festival 
Australia Sydney Film Festival Australia 
The greatest experience I’ve ever had watching a film. Not just at Cannes—ever. I left the theater dazed, confused, gutted, and impossibly inspired. Magellan isn’t just a film. It’s an awakening.
Oh my fucking god, I kept whispering, “I can’t believe you could do that.” Every single shot—30 to 60 seconds of pure painterly composition—felt like a frame pulled from some long-lost 16th-century tapestry. Light pours in like divinity itself. Not a moment wasted. Not a corner of the screen untouched by intention.
The story of Magellan and his lover is simply devastating. A love carved in suffering, burdened by the ever-familiar ghosts of death, ego, faith, colonialism, and human greed. But the film isn’t just a narrative—it’s a breathing…
fuck the cannes programming team for:
1) not putting this in competition
2) scheduling it at 10:30pm
3) not telling silencio to turn down the fucking bass
4) having that door with a super bright light open every 5 minutes
because that film was phenomenal
Lav at his most dialectical.
I always wondered what would happen if Lav made a big production film—and Magellan gives me the answer: it allows him to explore and dissect the oldest friend and enemy of the Melayu: colonialism, closer and more direct than ever.
For Lav, 2 hours and 45 minutes usually counts as a short film, but here it’s clear from the beginning that he wanted to go beyond his usual melancholic humanism film.
Yes, he has finally embraced the idea that “history beyond good and evil”, he gives us the image of two forces: primitive communal society and masochistic feudalism—Melayu and Portugal.
Lav Diaz and Manoel de Oliveira. And most importantly he let us the audience THINK.
เดี๋ยวมาต่อ
Thierry stop putting the best films of the whole festival in Cannes Premiere challenge. My first Diaz so I can’t compare this to his other films but it is undoubtedly a masterpiece and probably the best film I will see at Cannes. A film about the hollowness of European-ness that also makes ample room for the pain and eventually joy of the indigenous people the colonizers subjugate. Diaz knows exactly how long to hold on a great image. There’s dream sequences which recall Murnau and oranges that put Storaro to shame. An amazing title drop too that hints at the nature of this as a “biopic.” Magellan is not interesting as a person but as another thug of history, only serving as the bridge for the journey of an indigenous man losing and regaining his freedom in the first and final acts of the film.
Between its diversely acquired European funding, recognizable leading actor and the mere fact that it's being shot in colour, it would appear that Lav Diaz's Magellan is, on the surface, the notorious Filipino filmmaker's most blatant attempt at widespread appeal. This is even before we for the fact that his usual focus on the colonization of his homeland is, for once, centred on a titular figure more immediately recognizable to Western audiences, but the biggest sign of compromise from Diaz is clearly that Magellan is (*gasp*) only just over two-and-a-half hours long!
Naturally, the filmmaker has been quick to clarify, even before the film had premiered, that Magellan's current form is merely a condensed version of a planned nine-hour…
guys where am I. I just woke up and it's 4am on a monday. it's pitch black. i seem to be inside debussy but there's nobody here. can someone please call thierry so he can open the door for me thanks
Predictably this is was rough sit. Die hard slow cinema fans only.
That cinematography is often gorgeous, with towering and rich 4:3 compositions. This is basically what prevented me from walking out, just trying to soak in the painterly images.
I don’t feel this was the right story to tell for slow cinema. Where slow cinema aims to encourage the viewer’s contemplation, there’s no great depth to mine from senseless genocidal aftermaths or introduction of Jesus statues into indigenous cultures. We’re already aware of these practices, and it often feels like going through the motions of genocide and conquest 101.
Our attention drifts instead through our planet’s beautiful landscapes, thunderous skies, and infinite oceans. As both the Portuguese and the…
I should’ve known that a big budget Lav Diaz film bankrolled by European money would have the veneer of a Miguel Gomes or Lisandro Alonso rather than the more modest sheen of his other films, and this comes with a conspicuous lack of dialogue with the final stretch practically having none at all (the overwhelming fatalism reminded me of Bresson’s Lancelot Du Lac) Compared to the rest of his oeuvre this is likely his least outwardly didactic, featuring little to no scenes of people engaged in lengthy conversation where they seem to be directly speaking to the camera, with the level of narrative and interpersonal detail supplanted by the actual period details of the work. Still there is something exhilarating…
This is the best movie about the occupation of Palestinian territories by the Israeli government, and overall it is also the best and most accurate representation about the horrors of colonialism.
The movie is visually stunning and wonderfully directed, I particularly loved the scenes at sea.
Should have been competing for the palm. Should have won the palm. Lav is a treasure.
MAGELLAN: absolutely stunning from start to finish with one painterly shot after another, an impressive eye for framing and a compelling narrative that never feels dry despite the slow pace. It’s also so rich thematically with a depiction of colonialism that actually feels both damning and nuanced. Amazing performance by Gael García Bernal. Wow! #Cannes2025
Втф почему это не в конкурсе
