Using the immeasurable fear and desperation of the Bubonic Plague,Vincent Ward’sThe Navigator: A Medieval Odysseydelivers a different approach to the age-old tradition of time-bending inscience-fictionand fantasy films. Creatively ambitious and rife with religious and societal undertones,The Navigatorintricately utilizes visions and dreams to warn its characters of an impending doom,toying with audiences' expectations of what is real and what is not.The result is a smorgasbord of filmic images that bends the conventions of time and space.The Navigatoris arguably essential viewing for those interested in time-travel and its immense possibilities.
What Is ‘The Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey’ About?
The Navigator: A Medieval Odysseytells the story of a ragtag group of Cumbrian villagers in mid-14th century England, who are desperately trying to escape the onslaught of The Black Death. With nowhere to turn to, the villagers rely on the visions of Griffin (Hamish McFarlane), a boy who is gifted with a “second sight”. According to the images in his head, they are to undergo a mission to put a copper cross atop a cathedral on the far side of the world. With the blessing of a returning Connor (Bruce Lyons), one of the village leaders, they embark on a journey towards a deep cavern. With immense courage and some fine copper ore in their packs, they successfully blow through the rocks and end up in modern-day New Zealand. It appears that the cave that they have gone through is not merely a way to a far distant land,but a portal that distorts the fabric of the space-time continuum.
Connor’s and Griffin’s groups are split up by circumstances resulting from their awe and confusion of this strange world. Griffin and his companions walk their way into a foreclosed foundry, where they convince the workers to cast their copper ore into a cross, while Connor ends up missing, chasing a runaway member of his. After a series of comical mishaps because of their failure to understand the technologies of the present world, they eventually converge on the cathedral, and Griffin successfully places the cross atop the church tower. However, the story manages to pack ina twist ending; it was all Griffin’s vision, and they were still in the middle of the tunnel struggling to push through. When someone from the other end announces that the plague has managed to avoid them, they go back up, only to discover that Griffin has been infected.
‘The Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey’ and Its Approach to Time Travel
Time travel is a staple in the science-fiction genre, specifically because it opens new dimensions for storytelling, crafting narratives that wouldn’t be possible in the “natural” way we perceive them.Fraser ShermaninNow and Then We Time Travel: Visiting Pasts and Futures in Film and Televisionnotes that there are certain conventions regarding its usage in fiction. Often, films on time travel traverse the space-time continuum in a straightforward fashion. Charactersgo back in time and attempt to fix things as a last ditch effort to avert a great crisis. They may be hinged on the notions of causality (changing or maintaining outcomes à laBack to the Future), logic (contradictions and paradoxes, much like inMen in Black 3), and/or morality (bending history for the greater good, such as inTerminator 2: Judgment Day).
What makesThe Navigator: A Medieval Odysseystand out from these conventions is that it manages to blend all three of these ideas, while also injecting something new: the time travel doesn’t need occur in the physical realm. Rather, it manifests through the vision of its main character, stylistically separated by its creative use of color. The present time – or in the case of the film, the medieval time – is in black and white, while the visions which refer to the future are in full living color.This is more than just an aesthetic choice, as the most important sequence of the picture – the moment where the audience realizes it is all a vision – is a striking display.As Griffin has managed to reach the top of the tower, signaling the success of their mission, the images revert to monochromatic black and white, with all of them sitting ducks in the middle of the cave.
This immediate return to the absence of color is gut-wrenching to its spectators, evocative of its cruel intentions. It’s a reflexive recursion of massive proportions, which can be interpretive of Ward’s message that all of this is just, as time-travel is in real life,merely a fantasy. They may have traveled through space and time, but the truth of the matter is thatThe Black Death is coming, and there’s no way of stopping it.It has successfully subverted the viewers' expectations and genre tropes by completely disregarding anything about the possibility of time travel. In a way, the film uses time-travel to deny the existence of such. Interestingly, the only thing that came true of Griffin’s visions is that he is the one who would die. After all, in the film’s denouement,he saw himself falling from the tall ivory tower hammering home the futility of this fantastical endeavor.
The Social and Religious Undertones of ‘The Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey’
One of the more intricate things aboutThe Navigator: A Medieval Odysseyis about itssocial and religious questioning of the medieval ages.Wardhimself notesthat the idea of the film came from a conversation he overheard on trip to Ecuador. According to the filmmaker himself, a man was describing a dream he had where a city was made up of iron and glass, glimmered and shined across the cosmos. Ward then imaginedif an impoverished young man were to experience this vision, would he have had the same thoughts? This manifests into the very nature of the characters themselves. The Cumbrian villagers are impoverished, desperately trying to escape something that would wipe out their entire populace. At a time like this, they can only rely on their faith to grant them salvation. The journey they embark on is reminiscent of a pilgrimage, a long arduous trip to the holy land that has their answers – the final destination being a cathedral, an on-the-nose reminder of such. The blending of these two factors brings viewers right into their terrible predicament.One can quickly imagine the fear and paranoia enveloping those in the medieval ages in the face of such a deadly disease, and the desperation for salvation.
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‘The Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey’ Mirrors Medieval Fear Through Modern Eyes
Without a doubt,The Navigator: A Medieval Odysseytransforms modern life into an overwhelmingfever dreamfor its medieval travelers. From thinking a train is a fire-breathing beast or that skyscrapers are divine temples, the film allows viewers to see the world through these travelers' terrified, awe-struck eyes. In that sense, it doesn’t simply merge the 14th and 20th centuries, it smashes them together and creates a surreal cocktail of fear, faith, and futurism. There’s a particular moment when the villagers stumble onto a busy highway. Ulf clutches a wooden Virgin Mary statue while gazing at headlights and referring to them as “so pretty, so pretty.” While there’s some humor to be found there, it’s unsettling on some level since what’s typically mundane isapocalypticto them.
Perhaps where the film shines more is in how it uses thisfish-out-of-waterdynamic to change our perspective on modernity. Its grainy black-and-white visuals for medieval England and vibrant color for 1980s New Zealand really sell a sense of otherworldliness. It reminds viewers that a fresh pair of eyes can transform the ordinary into something magical, terrifying, and profoundly alien. Here, the director creates a sort of mirror that doesn’t just reflect our world but theirs, too. He prompts viewers to wonder if they’re truly as far removed from medieval fears and faith as we like to think.
How ‘The Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey’ Stands Apart From Classic Time Travel Films
While there’s no set formula for the modernsci-fi film, a majority of them tend to move along the same lines. There’s usually flashy tech, a “Great Scott!” moment, and a mission to save the day before the timeline ends up in shambles.The Navigator: A Medieval Odysseygoes a whole other direction and leans more into exploring faith, fear, and how time itself can feel like a foreign land. Take the moment the villagers first emerge from their subterranean tunnel into 1980s New Zealand. In some books, it would qualify as lackluster since there was no time machine or dramaticsci-fi effects. Instead, we get an effortless shift from monochrome to color. However, it’s far from underwhelming seeing as it’s that subtlety that makes it both poetic and oddly unsettling. The group’s reactions make the modern world feel as alien to them as Mars would to us.
The great thing here is thatThe Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey refuses to solely hone in on time travel. In fact, the concept of time travel is more of a vehicle to take a closer look at timeless human themes like survival, sacrifice, and belief. So, unlikeBack to the FutureorThe Time Machine, the narrative isn’t about tweaking the past orsaving the future. It’s about how the past collides with the present and how little humanity has changed. By making modernity almost mystical, Ward transforms the time travel genre altogether. In essence, Vincent Ward’s time-bending feature is a cinematic achievement that bends the idea of time-traveling to a completely different level. While it may not be as exciting as other sci-fi or fantasy stories –The Navigator: A Medieval Odysseypossesses a molasses-like pace at times –it successfully bridges the fantastic world of science-fiction and the harrowing indifference of reality.
The Navigator: A Medieval Odysseyis currently available to stream on Arrow Player in the U.S.
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The Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey
Men seeking relief from the Black Death, guided by a boy’s vision, dig a tunnel from 14th century England to 20th century New Zealand.
