CREATIVE LICENCE
by Roberto Lavidez
A staunch rejectionist of western imposed culture on his Malayan roots as he often proclaims to his foreign audiences, Lav Diaz venturously brings the very subject of colonization thru none other than a biopic of the explorer Magellan himself, the one whose name in history books has been touted as the ‘discoverer’ of the Philippines.
A multi-awarded auteur, Diaz is famous for his long-take aesthetics or slow cinema as exemplified by his impressive list of lengthy masterpieces which includes the indomitable back to back Golden Leopard winner, ‘From What Is before’ at the 67th Locarno International Film Festival in 2014 and the Golden Lion award for ‘The Woman Who Left’ at the 73rd Venice International Film Festival in 2016.
Interestingly enough, Diaz’s own seven year exploration of the life of Magellan which one would imagine to have been translated into the epic long narrative style he’s known for, comes down to a relatively meagre two hour and forty minutes. The western concept of time is starting to interpose its weight against the familiar forbearing approach of Diaz to his films.
Diaz has been giving emphasis to ‘detoxification’ as an underlying reason behind thematic arguments his films convey. Aesthetics in this case is beginning to submit to the rigors of a burgeoning production having to collaborate with some mainstream players in the industry. Magellan played by Gael Garcia Bernal who has a Hollywood pedigree aboard the ominous flag ship signifier of Spanish colonialism is leaving signposts for future navigation towards cinema’s untrodden path for Diaz. The Filipino of Malay origin is expanding his reach to exorcise his native land’s historical past from the clutches of western influence. This sentiment has always been echoed throughout his journey in the turbulent waves of western dominated world cinema. But pure as his intentions might be, it cannot be
dismissed that having his sights set on ‘cleansing’ the adulterated mindset of the ‘colonized’ viewer could also backfire as muddling the already unreliable if not faulty rendering of historical facts.
Cinema raises questions, challenges beliefs, not to immediately provide answers to spectators. But those questions have to be well meaning and not a haughty affront at historical biases with its own version of unconvincing claim that raises even more doubt to the veracity of the whole story. It’s a poisoned arrow inflicted on a myth, killing it like an afterthought with a dumbfounding revelation. This is how the pivotal battle was presented on screen with Humabon’s duplicity causing the defeat of Magellan and his troops in Mactan. After all the hackneyed scenes leading to it, the humdrum is disrupted with a surprising twist displacing Lapu-lapu from the annals of history and reshaping him into a pure myth. It is a bold statement coming from a filmmaker-cum-historian to challenge the prevailing narrative with a jab of his own.
The bondage that Diaz so often harp on tediously is well posited on the grounds of his ancestors’ traumatic past.
It is however ironic that given the backdrop of Magellan’s expedition, the natives’ primitivism is depicted only vestigially with the same prototypical portrayal of the ‘noble savage’ often seen in Hollywood. Diaz might have adopted the Western gaze projecting preconceptions drawn from the chronicles that gave us a semblance of the conquistador and his nemesis. Diaz’s portraits of both Humabon and Lapu-lapu are cloaked in a controversial contention setting off a discourse regarding all that was ever written about circumstances surrounding the death of Magellan. It is as if the events that took place leading to the battle at Mactan in his own audacious version based on his own research will just have to set things straight, subverting other historical claims or ‘figments of western-bred imagination’ for that matter.
In his brief appearance in Toronto during its premiere, the inconspicuous master filmmaker garbed in his usual muted outfit and bucket hat, self-deprecatingly declares himself an outsider. He regards himself a small time independent filmmaker compared to his chosen lead star. His transition to navigating the waters so to speak, for a more accessible, commercially viable production with a larger than life theme opens doors
to reevaluating the role of cinema at this stage of his career apart from the raison d’etre the bounty of his previous films have yielded. Is it a tool for myth busting or is it being repurposed to forge it.