The Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey (1988)
Cumberland, 1348. The plague is spreading in medieval England. The remote village of little Griffin is also threatened. But the 9-year-old boy has a recurring dream that holds the key to a tiny hope of survival: a lake with a coffin floating on it. A white church with an iron cross. A falling glove. A falling silhouette. A torch tumble through a dark shaft into infinity. With his brother he recognizes in it a prophecy to escape the Black Death. So they embark with a few men on a journey to a distant cathedral, where they want to set up an iron cross as an offering to God. Her path leads them through a deep and dark mine shaft into an unknown land and completely outlandish time - into the present-day New Zealand of the 1980s.
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You won't be disappointed!
A Masterpiece!
One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.
An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.
Identical to 1955 John Wyndham's book, "The Chrysalids"!Even identically using New Zealand in the visions!lol!
I like time travel stories -comical or not comical- and I like history as well, and I like to watch a movie to the end to truly judge it... but this Navigator clunker left me so cold I ejected the DVD half way through the film with a strong sense that I had better things to view or do elsewhere. Nothing made sense in the story to me: even within the "absurd" realm of time travel, its looseness with logic defied my sense of coherence or psychology. The premise is unbelievable, the characters are unbelievable (and hardly likable as well), the story is weak. and the visuals are mostly disappointing. I did not even mind the "Cumbrian" accents: putting on subtitles within the DVD solved the comprehension problem. But most of what I saw in this film (and that's at least half of the film) was relentlessly bleak or psychologically odd, and moreover took place at night. B&W or color, the viewer is forever in the dark. Last but not least: I am not a religious person- though not completely devoid of spiritual aspirations-, so the strong Christian ethos carried by the protagonists failed to interest me in their purpose. No enlightenment for this viewer here, people: this is a one dreary drag of a movie as far as I am concerned.
Some of the critiques I've read of this, from others on the database, complain about the clumsy imagery or the accents. Get a grip. The point isn't linguistic accuracy, or any other kind of "accuracy" but rather the theme and motifs. In 1348 a frightening "illness" swept Europe, killing thousands. People didn't understand what caused the illness, only that it offered a horrifying death. This movie is as much a critique of "christendom" as it is of contemporary politics. If the US nuclear submarine is for some too clumsy an analogy to the black death, imagine the fall out of nuclear bombing as analogous to the black death. The pervasive silent killer. This movie was fantastic, for its imaginative plot, the interesting motifs and imagery, the concept of a small boy's vision, and the possible universes.
I ordered the DVD of this on the sole knowledge that it was a time-travel film and imagining that it couldn't NOT be fun - and unfortunately came to regret my purchase on watching the said film although I actually watched the DVD three times in the hope that I could glean more interest the second and third time round. But no, my overall opinion did not change. This is for a number of reasons, firstly the dialogues are mostly unintelligible, they are very strong Scottish/Irish accents, there should be subtitles but there aren't any, so, basically, if you are not Scottish/Irish, you're up a gum tree. If English is not your mother tongue, you can forget the film completely ! Second thing is picture quality which is very amateur compared to similar type films made in Hollywood, thirdly, there is little interaction between the people from the 14th century and the people from the 20th - the fun about time-travel films is exactly the interaction which serves to construct a plot. Our band of miners, although "physically" in the 20th century, remain for the most part amongst themselves, and I would even query the logic of certain of their reactions faced with modern conveniences such as lorries and television sets.Here we have people tunnelling through a mine in Cumbria and ending up in New Zealand. Even if they were very fit, it's just nonsense, there's also the boy who dreams it all in advance but we don't know why.The worst failing of the film is it's almost perpetual dark and night. I intensely dislike films that take place all the time at night. Human beings are generally sleeping at night, whatever country they may be in so it doesn't make sense to make a film of this nature take place in the middle of the night - unless we are talking about a night watchman who's gone off on a time travel adventure - but this is not the case. So why make most of the sets in pitch dark, it's unnatural and you get the impression, rightly or wrongly that the film maker is trying to hide some inadequacies, whatever they may be.Lastly I'm not into medieval dress and costume - I am a person of the 20th century and am open to time travel around 200 or 300 years but the 14th century is a little too far back for me ! The film is the antithesis of another time travel film which I equally detested called the 12 monkeys - that was too extreme in the other way, incomprehensible plot, too many special effects to the point of becoming boring. In this film, the plot is just not strong enough to engender emotion, and there is no romance, which is a big "minus" in time travel films.As far as time travel goes, I'm more of a "Portrait-of-Jennie", Somewhere in time, For all time, cream-in-my-coffee person - I don't like the extremist ends of the scale, either too primitive (this film) or too overdone ( many others).I cannot possible recommend this film to anyone seeking an exciting and coherent time travel adventure ....the only possible use would appear to be a cure for radical insomnia.