Draft 2 PhD Introduction - ResearchSpace@Auckland

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Chapter Six
The Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey
Ward’s next film, The Navigator – a Mediaeval Odyssey, was a New
Zealand/Australian co-production and this fact highlights the far-reaching implications
that funding issues can have on the career of a director. After the film’s original
funding in New Zealand had collapsed, it was necessary for the director and John
Maynard, the producer, to move to Australia. Ward’s literal move from New Zealand
can be seen as metaphorically reflected in the film, which begins and ends elsewhere -
in fourteenth century Britain. Contemporary New Zealand is seen through the eyes of
outsiders. This chapter will not attempt a close analysis of the completed film – this has
already been covered by John Downie’s detailed critical response in the Cinetek
monograph The Navigator: A Mediaeval Odyssey – but will instead document the
difficult process of production which provides many insights into his working
aesthetic. 710 The chapter will also consider to what extent The Navigator, despite being
a New Zealand/Australian co-production and frequently listed as an Australian film,
reflects the more complex representation of New Zealand national identity that Ward
had begun to develop in Vigil. Now that he was virtually forced to pursue his
filmmaking career overseas, the issue of ‘New Zealandness’ remained, but would
become increasingly less direct and more a matter of theme and nuance.
The film begins in a village in Cumbria during the fourteenth century at the time of the
Black Death. In the belief that they will be able to spare their village from the plague, a
group of villagers, led by Griffin, a nine-year old visionary, who has dreamed that they
must make a pilgrimage to the ‘Celestial City’, tunnel their way through the earth and
emerge on the other side of the world in twentieth century New Zealand. After a series
of trials, they succeed in making their offering to God of a spire for the Great Cathedral.
On their return, the villagers celebrate being spared from the plague - all but Griffin,
who has contracted the plague from his brother and whose death is the price of the
villagers’ salvation. The film ends with a shot of a single coffin (Griffin’s) that has
been cast into the water, drifting away downstream.
710 Downie, The Navigator: A Mediaeval Odyssey.