The idea for the film originated when Ward attempted to cross a German
autobahn and became stranded in the middle. This inspired Ward (while trapped on the motorway) to imagine what it would be like for a medieval person to find themselves in such a 20th-century situation. He was also inspired by a report about two
Papua New Guinean tribesmen who briefly visited an Australian city, and the child's myth of digging through the earth and coming out the other side. The original script was "a broad comedy, rather brash and funny and full of warrior gnomes". The film is in part an attempt to view modern life in a way which makes it seem strange and fresh, as if seen for the first time, and speculation about what the ancestors of modern New Zealanders might make of them and their world. and has also compared the medievals' attempts to fend off the plague with New Zealand's
nuclear free policy (alluded to in the nuclear submarine scene) and its consequences, particularly the
Rainbow Warrior bombing. In both cases a small community attempts to determine its own fate in the face of a larger power. Despite its various analogies, Ward has said that the film is not intended to convey any single particular message: "Mainly it's an adventure story... I don't want to seem too heavy – basically it's about some people burrowing through the earth". Elsewhere, however, he has said that the film is "about faith – about the basic need to maintain belief in something, anything, no matter what".
Filming and production design Ward and his production team based the look of the film on extensive research into the
Middle Ages, particularly the mining industry, although this was then rendered imaginatively. The colours of the film are based on
medieval art and, in particular, medieval and renaissance artists' ideas about heaven and hell. The blues in many of the modern-day sequences are based on the inks in the
Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, while the reds and oranges of the motorway lights and furnace fires evoke images of hell in the works of
Hieronymous Bosch,
Pieter Brueghel and
Matthias Grünewald. Ward later said he had not achieved what he wanted to with the colour of the modern-day scenes due to the film's short shooting schedule. The colour in the medieval scenes, which were turned into black and white, was far better than that in the 20th-century scenes. Some of the mining scenes were inspired by
engravings from the German mining manual
De re metallica, although it dates from two centuries after the time of those scenes. The angel of death seen flying across the moon at one point is based on a medieval engraving in Paris'
Père Lachaise Cemetery. The film was shot in a range of New Zealand locations, including
Auckland,
Wellington,
Mount Ruapehu and
Lake Harris in the
Southern Alps. The spire in the climactic scene is of
St Patrick's Cathedral, Auckland. The film was also affected, and nearly cancelled, because of funding difficulties. Until the mid-1980s the
New Zealand tax system gave generous
tax breaks to investors in New Zealand films. Under the
fourth Labour government's Rogernomics reforms these were abolished, causing
The Navigator to lose funding six weeks before
principal photography was due to begin in 1986. The film was delayed for a year, until it became the first Australia-New Zealand co-production, partially funded by the
Australian Film Commission. Australian critics regarded the film as "essentially New Zealand" although Ward does not see it as being specifically tied to New Zealand. He was married to Kely Lyons, one of Ward's co-writers, who had "always conceived of him as Connor". •
Chris Haywood as Arno: Haywood was an established actor who had played dozens of parts in Australian television and film when he was cast in
The Navigator. •
Hamish McFarlane as Griffin: Ward saw thousands of schoolboys before casting McFarlane, who had never acted on screen before, as the boy visionary Griffin. Qualities Ward sought out included "something special about his eyes", the need for the actor "to look like a nine-year-old who could do a ten-hour day in a medieval mine, probably quite thin, and quite hardy... [and] he had to be capable of a little bit of humour and cheekiness". •
Marshall Napier as Searle: Napier was another established film actor, who had appeared in various New Zealand films including
Goodbye Pork Pie and
Came a Hot Friday. • Noel Appleby as Ulf: Ward has claimed that he "found Ulf the Fat working for the city council in the Auckland sewers. Noel Appleby was shy during the audition and had no film experience, but he
was the character... he turned out to be a natural actor". He won an Australian Film Institute Award for best supporting actor for his role, and went on to act in several other New Zealand films, including two of the
Lord of the Rings films.
Soundtrack The soundtrack of
The Navigator was composed by Davood Tabrizi and based on a huge variety of musical styles including
Celtic music, Scottish military music,
Gregorian chants, and nineteenth century mining music, with influences from the Middle East. ==Reception==