Review of 1492: Conquest of Paradise (1992) by Filipeneto — 22 Jun 2018

This film seeks to show the journey in which Christopher Columbus allegedly discovered America. About this there is a lot of historical controversy and its very difficult to be sure if the true discoverer was him, Amerigo Vespucci or the Portuguese João Vaz Corte-Real (who seems to have explored the Canadian coast twenty years before Columbus's voyage).

There are also doubts about the origins of Columbus. Some think he was Castilian and not Italian, others think he was from Sardinia, others claim that he was born in Portugal. But the film does not explore these controversies, remaining faithful to the canonical version of the facts: a Genoese navigator who discovers America to Castile.

But even so the film makes mistakes. Columbus was an adventurer and not a man in search of a dream, and the Castilian kings only allowed themselves to finance him because they had information that already had given as probable the existence of new lands in the region that Columbus wanted to explore.

Thus, the navigator died believing that he had arrived in Asia and only later navigation's determined to be a new continent. Everything I've said here throws out some ideas of the film and proves that the writer made a serious mistake by completely ignoring the navigator's travel diaries and basic facts of his biography, not restraining himself from inventing when he pleased, under the argument of creative freedom that, even in a movie, should not justify all that the screenwriter invents.

Okay, it's a movie and not a documentary, but if it's a historical fact there should still be some rigor in the way it's portrayed. The interpretation of Depardieu is not bad, but the accent was something that he messed up a bit.

The way the Indians were portrayed also seems incorrect and stereotyped. Even so, the film is worth it because its cinematically beautiful, has almost epic scenes and depicts very well the effort and daring of those who ventured across the seas.

One thing I cannot fail to point out: the extraordinary soundtrack of Vangelis, which has become an icon of music for cinema.