The Navigator: A Time-Travel Adventure (1988)

Vincent Ward's mystical tale of a tiny 14th-century English hamlet during the devastation of the Black Plague mixes faith and fantasy in a compelling adventure. Ward creates a stark look with his high contrast black-and-white photography: dark huts against a snow-covered landscape and a gray sky, candles and campfires burning tiny pools of light in the midnight-black caves. The visions of young Griffin (Hamish McFarlane) break this austere style with color dreams, at first merely flashes of images, then a vivid narrative of a pilgrimage through the center of the earth. Griffin's older brother Connor (Bruce Lyons), who has just returned from the dying, diseased cities of England, leads this great journey to an alien world of metal beasts and towering ramparts (revealed as a modern New Zealand city) to make their offering to God. Ward keeps the camera tied to their experience, creating a nightmarish vision of familiar objects and locations: a busy highway, a junkyard, a remarkable run-in with a surfacing submarine. Throughout, Griffin's haunting flashes of the future taunt him with clues to a death in the party, but they don't reveal who. The Navigator defies genre, mixing fantasy and science fiction, religion and mysticism, historical realism and modern adventure, to create a compelling, beautiful, visually stunning leap of faith. Product Description

Truly a great medieval fantasy [and a very good import]

I saw this movie for the first time about ten years ago, and was absolutely impressed on every level. The acting done is fantastic, and far beyond what you would expect from such a small budget. The directing leaves you with memorable scenes and the point is clearly made, big money does not equal big talent. Do not let this movie pass you by! This version is NTSC and will play on any US dvd player. It is the official Brazilian release, very good quality and has a fair price. Don't get fooled by the other guy who thinks that anything that is made in a foreign country is bad by definition. July 17, 2007

Word is this is a pirated DVD release

The only official version of "The Navigator: Medieval Odyssey" ever made for Region 1 (NTSC) was the Hen's Tooth DVD, retitled "The Navigator: A Time Travel Adventure", and that's out-of-print. An Australian company, AV Channel, released the only official PAL version.

(The 1-star rating is for this dubious DVD release; the movie itself is a 4-star.) May 19, 2007

A lost classic!

The USA release of this DVD costs upwards of $100.00... So this version is a suitable alternative... although the image quality is not the best... it's well worth the price.

This is the story of a boy in small village surrounded by the black plague... he has a vision that the villagers should tunnel through the earth to escape the plague... which they do... and emerge on the other side of the globe... in 20th century New Zealand...

beautifully shot... May 7, 2007

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