The Navigator

The film that almost won director Vincent Ward the Alien 3 assignment (although his influence on the screenplay is still strongly felt), 1988's The Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey has aged surprisingly poorly. A time travel adventure set during the Black Death, a small village's only hope for survival relies on the visions of a young boy who leads a team deep underground to find the far side of the world. Instead, they pop up in contemporary Auckland, New Zealand, where their desperate mission to place a sacred cross atop the tallest church spire is fraught with all the perils of modern life like highway traffic and elevated trains.

Alternately cute, quirky and pretentious, Ward's more overt art film tendencies are relegated to the lead character's visions of the future (which look like leftover footage from Bergman's Wild Strawberries mixed with The Hobbit ) while the rest of the film leans towards an audience friendly fish-out-of-water tale. The director still has a masterful knack for world building and the contrast between the Middle Ages sequences (all shot in grainy black-and-white) and the colorful, carnivalesque modern-day footage is ingeniously striking. But the script itself is middling at best, with a rushed feel to the finished product that's full of missed opportunities.

Arrow Video (who also released Ward's superior first dramatic feature - Vigil) offers up the best presentation yet on home video. A mainstay on VHS during the indie foreign renaissance, The Navigator looks simply sumptuous here! Extras include a brief (and rather muddled) interview with critic Nick Roddick, whose best bit of insight is Ward's original intention to cast the film with dwarves (a la Terry Gilliam'sTime Bandits). A half-hour documentary bookmarks Ward's career circa 1989 and - on the first pressing only - an additional collector's booklet featuring new writing on the film is included.