The Navigator (PG.)
Directed by Vincent Ward. 1988.
Starring Bruce Lyons, Chris Haywood, Hamish McFarlane, Marshall Napier, Noel Appleby, Paul Livingston. 88 mins. Partly black and white. Released on Blu-ray by Arrow Video.
The Navigator is a film that has left an indelible mark on film history: it's the reason Alien 3 is full of monks. New Zealand director Vincent Ward made enough of a noise with this tale of time travelling medieval peasants trying to save their Cumbrian village from the Black Death, that he was given the job of following up James Cameron's Aliens. His idea of setting it on an entirely wooden monastery planet was ultimately a little too far out for Fox, but a lot of his vision survived in David Fincher's version. (If you see the director's cut, or whatever they call it, on the Alien Quadrilogy box set, you will see Fincher actually made a pretty decent Alien film.)
So, I came to this film wondering what exactly was seen in it that would briefly persuade Fox to hand him control of one of their most treasured properties. In black and white sequences we see the villagers worry about the encroaching plague. One child, Griffin (McFarlane), can see visions and on his prompting a group of six villagers go off to hoist a spire on to the greatest church in Christendom and start tunnelling to the other side of the earth, which turns out to 20th century New Zealand. Griffin's visions and the twentieth-century footage is in colour.
If that premise seems a little sketchy written down, that is very much how it plays out on the screen. It all seems to be done with a very straight face, without every conveying to an audience why it should be taken seriously. The scenes of them wandering through the modern day seem to be set up for some kind of fish-out-of-water comedy but there is precious little humour in it.
Ward and his film are often described as visionary but again there's no much evidence of that. The stark black and white medieval scenes have an Andrei Rublev quality to them. The modern day sequences try to make audiences see the modern world through alien eyes, with cars and truck as monstrous beasts. They are quite effective but Gilliam did it better in The Fisher King. What you mostly get from the film is the sense that they didn't have a pot to piddle in financially. Lots of it is shot in tight close up to try and cover up not having the budget to shoot the scenes properly.
Having finally got to satisfy my curiosity about this film I have to say I was very disappointed. There is a poignancy to it though. Whatever its limitations, here was a director of vision and you'd like to think that that might be enough but Ward's career fizzled out.
Directed by Vincent Ward. 1988.
Starring Bruce Lyons, Chris Haywood, Hamish McFarlane, Marshall Napier, Noel Appleby, Paul Livingston. 88 mins. Partly black and white. Released on Blu-ray by Arrow Video.
The Navigator is a film that has left an indelible mark on film history: it's the reason Alien 3 is full of monks. New Zealand director Vincent Ward made enough of a noise with this tale of time travelling medieval peasants trying to save their Cumbrian village from the Black Death, that he was given the job of following up James Cameron's Aliens. His idea of setting it on an entirely wooden monastery planet was ultimately a little too far out for Fox, but a lot of his vision survived in David Fincher's version. (If you see the director's cut, or whatever they call it, on the Alien Quadrilogy box set, you will see Fincher actually made a pretty decent Alien film.)
So, I came to this film wondering what exactly was seen in it that would briefly persuade Fox to hand him control of one of their most treasured properties. In black and white sequences we see the villagers worry about the encroaching plague. One child, Griffin (McFarlane), can see visions and on his prompting a group of six villagers go off to hoist a spire on to the greatest church in Christendom and start tunnelling to the other side of the earth, which turns out to 20th century New Zealand. Griffin's visions and the twentieth-century footage is in colour.
If that premise seems a little sketchy written down, that is very much how it plays out on the screen. It all seems to be done with a very straight face, without every conveying to an audience why it should be taken seriously. The scenes of them wandering through the modern day seem to be set up for some kind of fish-out-of-water comedy but there is precious little humour in it.
Ward and his film are often described as visionary but again there's no much evidence of that. The stark black and white medieval scenes have an Andrei Rublev quality to them. The modern day sequences try to make audiences see the modern world through alien eyes, with cars and truck as monstrous beasts. They are quite effective but Gilliam did it better in The Fisher King. What you mostly get from the film is the sense that they didn't have a pot to piddle in financially. Lots of it is shot in tight close up to try and cover up not having the budget to shoot the scenes properly.
Having finally got to satisfy my curiosity about this film I have to say I was very disappointed. There is a poignancy to it though. Whatever its limitations, here was a director of vision and you'd like to think that that might be enough but Ward's career fizzled out.
