A fleet lands on an unfamiliar coast, and the man in command has enemies on both sides of the water. Hernan, a Mexican historical drama series from 2019, follows the conquistador Hernán Cortés and the expedition that carried him to the land now called Mexico.
What is Hernan about?
Hernán Cortés comes ashore at the head of a Spanish expedition, in territory whose peoples, rulers and alliances he does not yet understand. From there the series tracks his effort to press on and to hold his enterprise together. The dangers are of two kinds. Ahead lie the local powers whose land he has entered, with their own politics and their own reasons to resist or to bargain. Around him are the men who crossed the ocean in his ships: some rivals, some doubtful of his authority, all with ambitions of their own. The drama lives in that squeeze between an unknown country and an uneasy camp.
About the cast
Óscar Jaenada heads the credited cast, followed by Ishbel Bautista, Almagro San Miguel, Jorge Antonio Guerrero, Víctor Clavijo, Michel Brown, Dagoberto Gama and Aura Garrido. Julian de Tabira is the credited director. It is a large ensemble, as the subject demands: the story needs figures on the Spanish side, figures among the peoples they meet, and room for those caught between the two.
Context & significance
Four genres are attached to Hernan at once: drama, action and adventure, history and biography. Together they describe the series accurately. It is a portrait of one historical figure, staged with journeys and fighting, and set against one of the most consequential encounters in the history of the Americas, the arrival of the Spanish in the early sixteenth century. That the production comes from Mexico matters, because the events it dramatises took place on that soil and are still argued over there. Episodes run about 48 minutes. Viewers who know Cortés only as a name from a school textbook get a dramatised account of how the expedition began and who stood around him. It remains drama, and is best watched as one interpretation of the events.
Watching Hernan on Ktime
Farsi speakers have two ways into Hernan on K-Time: a Persian dub, or the original audio with Persian subtitles. You need to be logged in to a K-Time account to press play, while reading this page costs nothing and needs no login. The service is designed around Persian-language viewing for Iranians living abroad, with a Farsi interface throughout.