The Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.5
Overall		4.0

The Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey Blu-ray Movie Review

They're not quite dead yet.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman July 23, 2018

Some of you may be old enough that you grew up at least part of your young childhoods with only a black and white television, and so may have been confounded by hearing a certain gatekeeper talk about “a horse of a different color” when The Wizard of Oz made its annual holiday broadcast appearance. That particular consternation perhaps "broadened out" if you ever visited a friend whose family did have a color set when you were suddenly made aware that the film kind of magically transformed from stodgy black and white into glorious Technicolor once Dorothy got to the vicinity of that yellow brick road, something that accounted for that once confusing statement about a transforming equine. The Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey employs the same bifurcated palette strategy of shifting from black and white to color, though in this case “Kansas” is a feudal society under the grip of the Black Death, and “Oz” is a shining 20th century metropolis that the medieval time travelers respond to slack jawed in much the same way Dorothy herself does when she finds herself in an unexpected environment. The Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey is a rather interesting film in its own right, but it becomes perhaps especially interesting when viewed as a “Vincent Ward film”, since this often rather provocative New Zealand auteur’s still nascent filmography up to this point wouldn’t have necessarily suggested what amounts to a time travel tale with hints of mysticism and religious fervor lurking not all the far beneath the surface. Ward in fact had only released one feature film before The Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey, the very interesting 1984 opus Vigil (also recently released by Arrow in an edition I recommend), though he had also done two earlier pieces which might be thought of more or less as student films, with one of those being a quasi-documentary called In Spring One Plants Alone. If there is some presaging of The Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey discernable in some of Ward's earlier efforts, it may be his ability to draw rather commanding performances out of young actors, as well as that aforementioned mystical quality, something that at least infuses a lot of Ward's imagery if not always his surface content.

Perhaps understandably for a film that begins in a medieval setting awash in fears of the plague, and shot in evocative black and white, some viewers may be unavoidably reminded of Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal , though it’s notable that Ward’s take on this era is at least a trifle more playful, in terms of some of the supporting characters like sweet if slightly addlepated Ulf (Noel Appleby), while also delivering its mystical content more through the visions of little Griffin (Hamish McFarlane) than with regard to any personification of Death. The film quickly elides Griffin’s “second sight”, with a few prognosticatory visions of what’s to come (including some snippets in color), though the initial plot mechanics revolve around the apparent disappearance of Griffin’s mentor, Connor (Bruce Lyons), who had been on an expedition of sorts. Connor’s unexpected return sets the main plot into motion, when a group of explorers starts poking around inside a mysterious cave, which in turn leads them to an underground portal which ultimately delivers them to 20th century New Zealand.

Griffin believes that if the villagers place a copper cross atop the tallest church spire they can find that Providence will smile down upon them, or at the very least not visit the Black Death upon them. That aforementioned cave is a mine, which is where the villagers, in the thrall of Griffin’s visions, go to extract the ore, leading of course to an unexpected time traveling journey, though rather interestingly none of the villagers is aware they’ve time traveled. Having never seen an urban environment before, they simply assume that “this” is what all big cities must look like. And of course there’s a towering church spire that offers itself almost magically to them.

There’s an unabashed quest aspect to The Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey, but what gives this film its power is the fascinating dialectic between a “true believer” (little Griffin) and the kind of motley crew who surrounds him, some of whom have certain character flaws which are revealed as the film continues. Once again as with Vigil, Ward coaxes a really remarkable performance from a young actor making his feature film debut (and who, kind of like Fiona Kay in Vigil, evidently didn't pursue an on screen career subsequently). For all the magical realism that The Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey employs, there’s a definite turn away from any patent “wish fulfilment” in terms of how the story plays out. Ward, who is arguably a visionary of sorts himself with this film, seems to be suggesting that while it’s fine to view the world with rose colored glasses, the hardscrabble reality of black and white always returns to anchor things again.

The Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Arrow Video with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.85:1. As with some of the other Vincent Ward films Arrow has been releasing recently, the insert booklet for this release provides only some fairly generic verbiage on the transfer:

The Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey was digitally restored by the New Zealand Film Commission from original film elements. The restoration was supervised and approved by Vincent Ward. The film is presented in its original theatrical aspect ratio of 1.85:1 with stereo sound.

This is another really nice looking transfer from Arrow, especially in the rather lustrous looking black and white sequences. I wish more technical data had been offered in either supplements or the insert booklet, since I'm personally curious whether all of this was shot on 35mm, or perhaps some 16mm material was utilized, as evidenced by somewhat variable clarity and grain levels, two things that are especially noticeable in the monochrome sequences. That said, fine detail is routinely quite impressive in the black and white moments. Because of the glut of nighttime sequences coupled with a tendency to grade things toward rather deep cobalt blues in quite a few of the color moments, detail levels can falter occasionally, as can be seen in some of the screenshots accompanying this review. Despite some minor variances, though, this is a nicely organic looking presentation that doesn't have any major signs of age related wear and tear, and which suffers from no compression anomalies.

The Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey features a nice sounding LPCM 2.0 track. The film has a somewhat dreamlike sound design, and the wafting of effects, dialogue and Davood A. Tabrizi's really interesting score is handled effortlessly here. Fidelity is fine, and while the track doesn't offer "wow" sonics in terms of wide stereo imaging, there's appealing separation and attention to detail in the sound design which is ported over to the Blu-ray track without any problems whatsoever.

The Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Nick Roddick on The Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey (1080p; 9:01) offers longtime Vincent Ward champion Roddick discussing the film.


• Kaleidoscope: Vincent Ward (1080i; 29:17) is an archival television piece focusing on Ward which was produced in 1989.


• Trailer (1080p; 2:25)

As usual, Arrow has also provided a nicely appointed insert booklet.

The Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Kind of interestingly in terms of my aforementioned comparison of The Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey to The Wizard of Oz, evidently at one point Ward had thought of casting the time traveling villagers completely with "little people", which would have added a kind of bizarre "Munchkin" aspect to the proceedings. As it stands, his one "little person", namely young Hamish McFarlane as Griffin, really provides a heartfelt and evocative lead performance and commands the screen quite winningly throughout. This is an unusually thoughtful tale despite its kind of flashy time traveling surface story, and Arrow has delivered a release with solid technical merits and a couple of appealing supplements. Recommended.