THE NAVIGATOR: A MEDIAEVAL ODYSSEY (1988)
A Film Review Copyright Dragan Antulov 2003
Time travel - one of the most popular concepts of science fiction - is responsible for some of the best films in the history of the genre. Yet, most of time travel movies suffer from various cliches, and it is difficult to find one that would take original approach to this intriguing and thought-provoking subject. One of the films that took original approach is THE NAVIGATOR: A MEDIAEVAL ODYSSEY, relatively unknown 1988 Australia/New Zeland co-production directed by Vincent Ward.
The plot begins in Northern England 1348. Small Cumbrian mining village is hearing stories about Black Death - mysterious disease that wipes out entire cities and apparently moves from community to community during full moon. When Connor (played by Bruce Lyons), one of their bravest sons, returns from the outside world and confirms those stories, the villagers know that they have to do something before the next full moon. The solution is suggested by Connor's little brother Griffin (played by Hamish McFarlane), boy prone to prophetic dreams and vision. He claims that the only way for village to escape Black Death is to send miners into the deepest of all pits and let them dig their way to the other side of the world. There they would find Celestial City, forge a copper cross and put it on the top of cathedral. The party, led by Griffin and his visions, begins to dig and indeed find the way to the strange city on the other side of the world - which just happens to be Auckland in 1988 AD. Before they are able to fulfil their mission, Cumbrian pilgrims would have to deal with many frightening experiences and Griffin's visions about one of them experiencing tragic end.
The original twist in this time travel story is in the identity of time travellers. Most of time travel films present the events from the perspective of people who belong to our present - either as travellers to distant past or future, or those who interact with the travellers from different eras. But here, the protagonists are not only people who don't belong to our time; they don't even know that they have travelled through time. Since people in Middle Ages rarely travelled far outside their small communities and had rather limited perception of the world beyond their most immediate surroundings, their interpretation of strange new world is quite believable. Vincent Ward and his co-writers Geoff Chaple and Kelly Lyons therefore had difficult task ahead of them - putting the audience in the shows of the protagonists whose perception of the world is totally alien. Ward managed to do it by framing the plot with prologue and epilogue shot in black-and-white and portraying the mediaeval world in simplest of terms - small mountainous, snow-covered village, full of people connected by blood and affection, and brave enough to take desperate measures to rescue themselves. Excellent performances by Bruce Lyons, Hamish McFarlane and couple of character actors (Noel Appleby, who plays Ulf, was later seen as one of the Hobbits in Jackson's FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING) make those mediaeval characters very human and quite likeable, thus drawing the audience to their cause.
However, when the film leaves mediaeval settings, gets colour and finally confronts pilgrims with the wonders of late 20th Century, it becomes apparent that THE NAVIGATOR missed a lot of its potential. The most obvious flaw is the lack of narrative cohesion - the plot is advanced through Griffin's visions, many of them repetitive flashbacks/flashforwards. The audience is also left with one unanswered question - whether the adventure in Auckland really took place and was it nothing more than Griffin's dream. But the greatest problem is in Ward's decision to set the plot during the night, with the streets of the great city conspicuously deserted, except for the trains, cranes, bulldozers, trucks and various machines that manage to scare our protagonists. Ward even puts submarine (Soviet nuclear?) in the local harbour, probably trying to make a supportive nod to New Zealand's anti-nuclear policy in late 1980s. All that has some devastating consequences to the suspension of disbelief - the audience can hardly accept groups of strange-looking people wondering the streets of big modern city without catching the attention of on-lookers. As a result, THE NAVIGATOR is a film that got lost on its way, but it nevertheless deserves a praise for taking original and very human approach to seemingly over-exploited concept.
RATING: 6/10 (++)
Review written on February 7th 2003
Dragan Antulov a.k.a. Drax http://film.purger.com - Filmske recenzije na hrvatskom/Movie Reviews in Croatian http://www.purger.com/users/drax/reviews.htm - Movie Reviews in English http://www.ofcs.org - Online Film Critics Society
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