Навигатор: Средневековая одиссея

The Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey is a 1988 feature film, an official Australian New Zealand co production, directed by Vincent Ward. It won numerous New Zealand and Australian awards, including the Australian Film Institute Award for Best Film, and several awards at European fantasy film festivals.

During the Black Death of mid 14th century England, people in a remote Cumbrian mountain village listen with fear to tales of the gruesome plague that has engulfed the world. In an attempt to stave off the infection, they rely upon the visions of a boy, named Griffin, who has a reputation for having a kind of "second sight". With the backing of the village's most famous adventurer, a man named Connor, whom Griffin idolizes, a group of the townsfolk travel to a nearby cavern. Bringing good copper ore to be melted and cast into shape, they dig down into the earth, all the while racing against time and the coming of the next full moon, in an effort to place a holy cross on the steeple of "the biggest Church in all of Christendom" as an offering for God's protection. As the full moon is rising, the villagers break through into a smooth lined tunnel, and then, finding a ladder, climb up and into late 20th century New Zealand. Up until this point, the film has been shown in black and white. Now the adventure continues in colour film. The villagers marvel at the various technologies, never questioning what year it might be, believing that such things are only natural in great cities, but Griffin is haunted by a dark vision as the villagers come closer to fulfilling their quest.

The idea for the film originated when Ward attempted to cross a German autobahn and became stranded in the middle. This inspired Ward (while trapped on the motorway) to imagine what it would be like for a medieval person to find themselves in such a 20th century situation. He was also inspired by a report about two Papua New Guinean tribesmen who briefly visited an Australian city, and the child's myth of digging through the earth and coming out the other side. The original script was "a broad comedy, rather brash and funny and full of warrior gnomes". The film is in part an attempt to view modern life in a way which makes it seem strange and fresh, as if seen for the first time, and speculation about what the ancestors of modern New Zealanders might make of them and their world. and has also compared the medievals' attempts to fend off the plague with New Zealand's nuclear free policy (alluded to in the nuclear submarine scene) and its consequences, particularly the Rainbow Warrior bombing. In both cases a small community attempts to determine its own fate in the face of a larger power. Despite its various analogies, Ward has said that the film is not intended to convey any single particular message: "Mainly it's an adventure story I don't want to seem too heavy – basically it's about some people burrowing through the earth". Elsewhere, however, he has said that the film is "about faith – about the basic need to maintain belief in something, anything, no matter what".

Ward and his production team based the look of the film on extensive research into the Middle Ages, particularly the mining industry, although this was then rendered imaginatively. The colours of the film are based on medieval art and, in particular, medieval and renaissance artists' ideas about heaven and hell. The blues in many of the modern day sequences are based on the inks in the Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, while the reds and oranges of the motorway lights and furnace fires evoke images of hell in the works of Hieronymous Bosch, Pieter Brueghel and Matthias Grünewald. Ward later said he had not achieved what he wanted to with the colour of the modern day scenes due to the film's short shooting schedule. The colour in the medieval scenes, which were turned into black and white, was far better than that in the 20th century scenes. Some of the mining scenes were inspired by engravings from the German mining manual De re metallica, although it dates from two centuries after the time of those scenes. The angel of death seen flying across the moon at one point is based on a medieval engraving in Paris' Père Lachaise Cemetery. The film was shot in a range of New Zealand locations, including Auckland, Wellington, Mount Ruapehu and Lake Harris in the Southern Alps. The spire in the climactic scene is of St Patrick's Cathedral, Auckland. The film was also affected, and nearly cancelled, because of funding difficulties. Until the mid 1980s the New Zealand tax system gave generous tax breaks to investors in New Zealand films. Under the fourth Labour government's Rogernomics reforms these were abolished, causing The Navigator to lose funding six weeks before principal photography was due to begin in 1986. The film was delayed for a year, until it became the first Australia New Zealand co production, partially funded by the Australian Film Commission. Australian critics regarded the film as "essentially New Zealand" although Ward does not see it as being specifically tied to New Zealand. He was married to Kely Lyons, one of Ward's co writers, who had "always conceived of him as Connor". Chris Haywood as Arno: Haywood was an established actor who had played dozens of parts in Australian television and film when he was cast in The Navigator. Hamish McFarlane as Griffin: Ward saw thousands of schoolboys before casting McFarlane, who had never acted on screen before, as the boy visionary Griffin. Qualities Ward sought out included "something special about his eyes", the need for the actor "to look like a nine year old who could do a ten hour day in a medieval mine, probably quite thin, and quite hardy [and] he had to be capable of a little bit of humour and cheekiness". Marshall Napier as Searle: Napier was another established film actor, who had appeared in various New Zealand films including Goodbye Pork Pie and Came a Hot Friday. Noel Appleby as Ulf: Ward has claimed that he "found Ulf the Fat working for the city council in the Auckland sewers. Noel Appleby was shy during the audition and had no film experience, but he was the character he turned out to be a natural actor". He won an Australian Film Institute Award for best supporting actor for his role, and went on to act in several other New Zealand films, including two of the Lord of the Rings films.

The soundtrack of The Navigator was composed by Davood Tabrizi and based on a huge variety of musical styles including Celtic music, Scottish military music, Gregorian chants, and nineteenth century mining music, with influences from the Middle East. and although it won no awards it received a five minute standing ovation. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film received an 88% approval rating based on eight reviews, with an average rating of 6.8/10.

The song "Farside of the World", from Ayreon's album Actual Fantasy, was inspired by the film. The Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey was shown on BBC One in the early Nineties. It was also shown as part of the Bedford Civic Film Festival in 1989.