4.5/5 stars
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 explorerโs expeditions to Southeast Asia in the early 16th century, Magellan is relentlessly engrossing โ an epic in which viewers witness the distress, death and destruction brought about by one manโs delusions of colonial conquest.
Interestingly, Magellan also sets out to undermine the narrative about the explorerโs misdeeds in Diazโs home country as well.
Rather than sticking to the orthodox view of Magellanโs 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.