Reviews

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  ★★★★ review by Jeremy Burgess on Letterboxd

  [Seen at the 2016 Nashville Film Festival]

  Very gritty, well-written character study about a former soldier that gets caught up in a blackmail attempt gone awry.

  Excellent performance from Damián Alcázar as the lead. The character journey for Magallanes is a complex one and he nails it at every beat.

  Hopefully this gets some traction with U.S. audiences. Well worth your time.

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  ★★★½ review by TryingInTheJoy on Letterboxd

  Magallanes es otro intento mío de familiarizarme con el cine peruano (mi país) y, afortunadamente, ha logrado gustarme.
  
  Esta película que narra el abuso de los soldados hacia el personaje de Magaly Solier (Celina) logra su cometido de hacernos recordar esos tiempo borrados de nuestra historia.
  
  Tanto el protagonista como Celina tienen historias que prefieren olvidar pero son obligados a recordar por los sucesos de esta historia.
  
  Con actuaciones correctas y creíbles, la película sobresale también en la fotografía, destacando la escena de Celina corriendo por los cerros.
  
  Aunque también tiene sus puntos débiles como el clímax temprano y un final un poco generoso para lo que esperaba.
  
  Sin duda una muestra que nuestro cine tiene potencial, lástima que somos nosotros mismos quienes menos lo apoyamos, prefiriendo el cine comercial y malo.
  
  Recomendada.

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  ★★★★½ review by ArielValenzuela on Letterboxd

  Hacen falta más películas como Magallanes. Si bien no es perfecta ni destaca por nada en particular, tiene el mérito de no dejar indiferente a quien la ve. La película aborda temas como la memoria y el olvido –a propósito de los crímenes cometidos por los militares en Perú–, de forma clara y atractiva para el público. Una historia que se repite en casi todo Latinoamérica y que es necesaria recordar, hoy más que nunca, cuando el fascismo avanza y pretende reivindicar los regímenes que socavaron la dignidad de nuestros pueblos.

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  ★★★★ review by Matt Johnson on Letterboxd

  On a mountain top a solitary woman overlooks Lima at night, its bright office towers and sprawling red brick slums, and cries. A taxi driver seeks to bolster his pitiful income through blackmail. A former colonel in the Peruvian military who once fought the fire of the Shining Path insurgency with a fierce fire of his own, now fights senility. Each of them stands as a gatekeeper to secrets that might be better left unknown. Their experiences are emblematic of the city, country and continent as a whole; the past is very much a part of the present.

  The film touches upon an important subject. Some Peruvians treasure the fear and rage of war. It is all they have known, or want to know. Others dream of peace, prosperity and a freedom as vibrant as that enjoyed by the Miraflores district hang gliders along the ocean coast. Many more are caught in the middle. All, whether they acknowledge it or not, are haunted and hobbled by a legacy of violence. The consequences and causes of this violence, much of it socioeconomic, are important to Latin Americans and to countries including the United States who helped instigate it. A conversation is long overdue. As with the characters in the film, who attempt to talk about the horrors of the past, we may not get the reaction we expected.

  There are some amazing and heart-rending scenes including Celina’s emotional speech in Quechuan, the hang gliders over the ocean, and Magallanes’ insidious brother getting hold of a victim, that might have been more effective if there was more money available to the filmmakers. Of course, additional funds might have caused the scenes to backfire. The acting is a little clunky but believable. Seen at the 2016 Miami International Film Festival.

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  ★★★★★ review by MarceloTM on Letterboxd

  Que película! One of the best thrillers in last years. Peruvian history, south american history. Open scars all over the place

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