‘Magellan’: Old questions, new answers

I wonder how Filipino moviegoers will relate to Lav Diaz’s new film “Magellan,” which opens in cinemas this week. When I first read the press releases following the previews in Europe, I was intrigued because Diaz allegedly did “seven years of research” to make the bold assertion that Lapu-Lapu did not exist. Diaz is reported to have declared that Lapu-Lapu was a myth, a figment of Humabon’s scheming imagination. Clickbait meant to stir controversy fell flat. Only the Cebu-based The Freeman carried an article based on the reactions of two “historians,” who did not want to be identified. How could these “historians” comment on a film they had not even seen?

Diaz is fortunate that the public is fixated on the current investigations into unimaginable corruption in ghost or faulty flood control projects. An earlier film was not as lucky. In 2019, the Spanish animated film “Elcano e Magellan: La primera vuelta al mundo” was promoted in the Philippines, with the English translation “Elcano and Magellan: The First Voyage Around the World.” The film distributor tweaked the movie poster by announcing that it featured the Battle of Mactan and “the Philippines’ own hero Lapu-Lapu.” It was a PR disaster. A social media storm blew up over the depiction of Lapu-Lapu as a villain. I often refer to this as a textbook example of the issue of bias in history. History always has a point of view. “Elcano and Magellan” was withdrawn by the distributor, fearful of the knee-jerk reaction to the trailer and movie poster. The public made a judgment on a film they had not even seen!

When I registered for the invitational screening of Diaz’s film last Saturday, a number of reporters politely asked for an interview, to which I replied, “Let me watch the film first, then I will comment.” Diaz spotted me in the crowd and explained that his film is meant to inspire conversation, not controversy. I replied, “You don’t need validation from me. You made a film, not a doctoral dissertation.” In retrospect, the film is his conversation with history, his understanding of it, as presented to viewers.

Magellan is a difficult film to make. Production design was made possible with assistance from Spain and Portugal. Diaz’s real challenge was how to make the story exciting for viewers who already know the ending—our ancestors from Cebu killed our first tourist. The film opens in a primeval forest, with actors and actresses completely nude, somewhat like the Tasadays from my martial law childhood. Most in the audience were confused by a massacre of the natives, thinking the setting was Cebu or Mactan. If Araling Panlipunan is properly taught, the 1521 Battle of Mactan is just one episode of the bigger story of the first circumnavigation of the world. We then see Magellan haggling in the Melaka slave market and bringing home “Enrique,” who people want to believe was from the Philippines. Magellan fails to get funding for his expedition from the Crown of Portugal, so he ends up sailing for the Crown of Spain.

Half an hour into the voyage, I overheard someone in the audience whisper, “pucha slow burn pala ito!” I wanted to laugh out loud because Diaz is famous, or should I say infamous, for films that run over eight hours. At close to three hours, you can still watch Magellan on a full bladder. Cinematography is superb; the scenes of the voyage made me seasick. An hour of boredom in the voyage made me realize what it must have been like for Magellan and his crew to sail for weeks without seeing land, to endure heat, hunger, and heavy rain in the hope of a destination they were unsure of. Diaz successfully reveals Magellan’s bad side. A sailor is sentenced to death for sodomizing a page boy. A captain who led a mutiny, together with a sympathetic priest, was left on a deserted island to die. The doomed priest cursed the expedition, and that partly explains Magellan’s violent end.

In the film, we see the uneasy relationship between Magellan, Humabon, Colambu, and the people converted to Christianity. A cross and the Santo Niño replace the idols taken forcibly from homes, gathered in a heap and set ablaze. Two details I would have corrected if I were a historical consultant would be on the Santo Niño and the sandugo, or blood compact. What is accepted today as the oldest Christian relic in the Philippines, the image of the holy child, was made by artisans in Mechelen, a town in the Netherlands. From samples I have seen in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam and the Liebieghaus in Frankfurt, the image comes naked, with white skin, not the brown Santo Niño with the complicated clothes venerated in Cebu today. From the account of the 1565 Legazpi expedition, blood for sandugo was drawn from the chest, under the breast, rather than from the arms as depicted in the film. These are minor details that do not detract from the whole experience of the film.

No spoiler alert from me. You have to experience Diaz’s film to gain from it. Come with an open mind. Suspend disbelief. Bear with the running time. Ditch what you think you know about the textbook Magellan. You will leave with more questions than answers, and that is well worth the price of admission.