'Magellan' exposes cost of colonization and the struggle for freedom

Throughout its two-hour-and-40-minute runtime (one of Diaz's shortest), we see Gael García Bernal embody our infamous colonizer, chronicling his earlier colonization of Malacca, where he enslaved Enrique (Amado Arjay Babon), his return to Portugal before moving to Spain to start another expedition that would have been the first European voyage to Asia through the Pacific Ocean, and their eventual arrival in Cebu.

- By JANUAR JUNIOR AGUJA

Magellan is dedicated to his mission of spreading Christianity around the world and enforcing its practice at any cost. We don’t see him preaching what makes Christianity a fulfilling faith experience; instead, we see him wielding the religion as a tool of power. He uses it to rule over the early Cebuanos through the image of Señor Sto. Niño, after their sickly children miraculously recovered. He also punishes his crew for what he perceived as sins during the expedition, including sodomy and mutiny.

We also see his hypocrisy, such as when he expressed remorse for punishing a crew member but not for the natives of Malacca whom his crew killed, their lifeless bodies left on the ground as if decorations of his conquest. He even tried, unsuccessfully, to pressure the ship's priest to reveal confessions from rebelling members.

It's not to say that Magellan is the only cunning person in power, but also Humabon (Ronnie Lazaro), who detests the Spaniards' enforcement of customs that destroyed their own. He brings up a myth of a certain datu named Lapulapu, resistant to Magellan's conversion, even going so far as to claim he is a "wakwak" (vampiric, birdlike creature) to discourage Magellan from pursuing further.