The Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey (1988) on Netflix
PG19881h 30mActionAdventureDrama
In 1348 the plague closes on a remote Cumbrian village. Griffin, a boy whose dreams show what is coming, guides Connor and other villagers as they dig into the earth.
- Netflix2.9/5
- IMDb6.6/104,354 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes88%
Trailer
Plot summary
A remote village in the Cumbrian mountains has been spared so far, while the plague spreads across England in 1348. The villagers hear accounts of the disease and fear its arrival. Griffin, a boy of nine with a name for second sight, has visions he cannot explain: a coffin adrift on a lake, an iron cross on a church, a torch dropping into a shaft. Connor, the village's celebrated adventurer and the man Griffin admires, backs the plan these dreams suggest. Carrying copper ore for melting and casting, the group goes to a cavern nearby and digs into the earth, hurrying before the next full moon, meaning to set an iron cross on the steeple of the greatest church in Christendom as an offering to God for protection.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey (1988)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Until the mid-1980s New Zealand's tax system gave generous breaks to investors in local films. The fourth Labour government's Rogernomics reforms abolished them, costing The Navigator its funding six weeks before photography was due to begin in 1986; delayed a year, it became the first Australia-New Zealand co-production.
- The idea came to Vincent Ward when he tried to cross a German autobahn and became stranded in the middle, imagining what it would be like for a medieval person to find themselves in such a 20th-century situation. A report about two Papua New Guinean tribesmen visiting an Australian city also fed in.
- Ward claimed he found Ulf the Fat working for the city council in the Auckland sewers, and that Noel Appleby was shy at the audition and had no film experience. In fact Appleby had appeared in three New Zealand films before, and he won an Australian Film Institute Award for best supporting actor.
- Lake Harris, where some of the medieval scenes were filmed, sits 1000 meters above sea level, and the crew could only film when the area was too cold for mountaineering. They had just ten weeks to shoot the whole film, much of it at night.
- Ward saw thousands of schoolboys before casting Hamish McFarlane, who had never acted on screen, as the boy visionary Griffin. McFarlane was nominated for an Australian Film Institute Award for best actor but did not continue acting into adulthood, becoming an assistant director on New Zealand films and television shows instead.
