THE NAVIGATOR: A MEDIEVAL ODYSSEY

Australia, 1988, 91 minutes, Black and white/Colour.
Bruce Lyons, Chris Haywood, Hamish Mc Farlane, Marshall Napier, Noel Appleby, Paul Livingstone, Sarah Pierse.
Directed by Vincent Ward.

The Navigator is an Australia-New? Zealand co-production, the winner of six Australian Film Institute awards including best film, screenplay, director, cinematography. The film was written and directed by Vincent Ward (Vigil, A Map of the Human Heart).

The film is subtitled A Medieval Odyssey. It is intriguing and imaginatively filmed: England during the Black Death, 1348. A young seer dreams of pilgrimages, cathedral steeples, death. A group of men with this boy seer journey through the earth only to emerge in Auckland 1980s where they strive to accomplish their religious mission to ward off the Black Plague from their village. The 14th century sequences are filmed in black and white. The Auckland sequences are in realistic colour - although the journey takes place during the night and there is a surreal atmosphere about the journey, especially as they try to cross the highway, see television sets with the Grim Reaper AIDS advertisements, go on a boat with a horse across the harbour and are almost capsized by an emerging submarine, go on the front of a train at a speed that they are not used to, firing the copper to make the crucifix, scaling the steeple to place the cross on its top. The film works well, abounds in evocative symbols and is absorbing cinema. However, those not in sympathy with such dreamlike imaginative fantasies and the combining of the past with the present have found the film somewhat pretentious.

The film is very well acted, especially by Hamish Mc Farlane as the young seer. Bruce Lyons is the hero, Chris Hayward is the one-armed boatman, Noel Appleby is the childlike giant Ulf and Marshal Napier his brother Searle.

1. A work of the imagination? Its impact, interest value, entertainment? The awards for the film?

2. Australian and New Zealand co-production? Relative contributions? A New Zealand perspective?

3. Black and white photography, colour photography? The 14th century in stark black and white, the 20th century in realistic colour? The blend of the real and the surreal? The dream sequences in black and white with colour, for example the burning flame? Light and darkness, shadows, night, the moon and the themes of death? The pit and the tunnel? The village and the snow? Water?

4. The musical score, the range of hymns, Latin motifs, mediaeval music? The sound engineering for the various instruments, natural and contrived sounds?

5. The editing and pace, the intercutting of the present with the past, the dream with the real?

6. The structure: Griffin's dream, the reality of the 14th century village, the build-up to the expedition, the realism of the visit to the big city, the finding of the journey being a dream and a story told? Yet Ulf and the reality of his experience? The build-up to the finale and Griffin's death?

7. The title and the subtitle, the navigator and sea and water, the journey, the odyssey, the search and the journey, from the Middle Ages? Reality and dream? Griffin as the navigator?

8. The religious perspective: 1348, Cumbria, the isolated villages and their lifestyle and work, the winter and the isolation, the fears? The role of God and the Black Plague? Atonement for sinfulness? The picture of the universe: the flat world, the evil side and the good side, tunnelling through the earth? The theme of healing, faith, prayer, quests and pilgrimages, the casting of the copper for the cross, the gift offering, grace and destiny, prayer for themselves, for others, premonitions and concern, superstitions? The symbols throughout the film of earth, air, fire, water? The church and the steeple? Achievement and death? Faith in the church, the one church? The church rich, the church poor? The achievement of the cross on the steeple? Truth, the telling of lies, death for others?

9. 20th century dream symbolism and psychology? Dreams and the real, premonitions and warning, messages, living the dreams, symbols and interpretation?

10. The symbols of earth and snow and the tunnelling? Air and breathing and smelling? Fire and flames? Water and the harbour, the final burial?

11. 20th century themes and their echoes: the nuclear threat and the submarine in Auckland harbour, the advertisement for AIDS awareness and the Grim Reaper? The plague and Black Death?

12. Griffin and his place in the village, the young boy and his experience, his friendship for Conor, his dreams and the children mocking him, his trances? Griffin as a mediator? The joy in Conor's return, his dream and recounting it, the sense of mission? The journey, the effort of going through the earth? The bewilderment of moving from Cumbria to the modern city? His trying to interpret and sense what had to be done? His not seeing - and being led by the blind man? The crossing of the road, the finding of the foundry, the horse and the harbour, the bewilderment with the television sets and images, the bird, the Grim Reaper? The submarine? The vision of death - and the wearing of the gauntlet? His relating to the group? The time, the night, the moon? The cathedral, climbing, his fall? Discovering that he was telling the story and that they had not actually travelled? The storytelling and healing? The rejoicing to return? His illness, the discovery of Conor and the infection and the truth? His dying for others, his water burial - navigating to the next world?

13. Conor as the hero, out in the world, people wanting his return, his experience of the world, the Black Plague, leading the group, burrowing through the earth, crossing the road, separating, his experience on the front of the train, climbing the steeple, swinging free, the danger, taking off the gauntlet? His illness - and his being healed?

14. Searle and his strength, the hard work, his wisdom, crossing the road, helping them through the city? His care for his brother Ulf, Ulf and his simple-mindedness, his fear for crossing the road, the statue of the Virgin? Arno and his having one hand, Searle and Arno and their travels through the city?

15. Arno, the thief, the loss of his arm, his talk, work, on the journey, arguing with Searle, with Ulf? Getting the horse, the boat on the harbour?

16. Martin, his presence with the group, gentleness, wisdom?

17. Ulf, simple-mindedness, his size, joy in being with the group, his fears on the road, tunnelling under the road, seeing the great city and its lights, the statue of the Virgin?

18. The background of the family in the village, the presentation of people in the village, their way of life, the elders, coping with the plague? The children?

19. In the city, the group meeting the blacksmith and the friends at the foundry, its being closed down, the comment on industry? The humorous remarks about where the group had come from? The details of the casting of the copper and the cross? On the truck and getting to the cathedral? Their helping raise the cross?

20. The modern city, the lights, the traffic, thugs, the boat, the horse, the submarine, the television, the ambulance? The realism for the audience - but symbols of terror and hope and delight for the pilgrims?

21. The blend of the serious and the humorous, the offhand understated remarks which put the serious mythology into a humorous perspective?

22. The overall impact of the film? Serious, humorous? Myth-making? Universal culture, religion? Symbolism, realism, hope?