The Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey.

Review #2416: The Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey.

Cast: 

Bruce Lyons (Connor), Chris Haywood (Arno), Hamish McFarlane (Griffin), Marshall Napier (Searle), Noel Appleby (Ulf), Paul Livingston (Martin), Sarah Peirse (Linnet), Mark Wheatley (Tog 1), Tony Herbert (Tog 2), Jessica Cardiff-Smith (Esme), and Roy Wesney (Grandpa) Directed by Vincent Ward (#627 - What Dreams May Come)

Review: 

"It's easy to get films made that are more generic. I want my films to be accessible, though I also want to do them on my own terms, and to be about my own concerns as a filmmaker."

Sure, of course New Zealand counts for World cinema, since they do manage to conjure up a few interesting directors and movies from time to time, particularly with this co-production between New Zealand and Australia. Vincent Ward was born in Greytown to a background of farmers (his father] had damaged hands from the war that still maintained his farm). He studied Fine Arts in university but ended up becoming a filmmaker in 1978. He made his feature debut with Vigil (1984) that had come from years of searching for ideal settings to film and in casting; the movie was the first of the country's type to get on the prominent festival circuit. Apparently, the impetus of the next film by Ward started when he tried to cross a German autobahn (a federal controlled-access highway system) and got stranded. Ward wrote the script with Geoff Gapple and Kely Lyons. Made over the course of ten weeks in 1987 with a look that had influence from the Middle Ages (the film utilizes certain shades when it is set in the present day when compared to the black-and-white medieval sequences) to go alongside elaborate shots, the movie only became reality when the Australian Film Commission gave partial funding when the usual way of tax breaks was rejected. Ward didn't exactly become a household name, although it was not really his fault. He was actually the first director tapped to direct Alien 3, as he wrote the treatment that was thoroughly beaten to hell in the final rendition. Instead, Ward followed the Navigator film with Map of the Human Heart (1993). His next batch of films came with What Dreams May Come (1998), River Queen (2005), and Rain of the Children (2008), with the latter being his last released movie. At any rate, he keeps busy with painting and video art.

Whether seen as a fantasy adventure or as seen as movie of keeping one's faith under all circumstances, it is a pretty curious movie that is far more than, well, travelling through time (or do they...). Dream land or not, the atmospheric qualities of the movie come out pretty well in showing the wacked world of a place closed off (in some way) from certain people (one is in 1348, the other, well, in the 20th century), as one does when involving New Zealand, I suppose. It isn't so much that the modern world would look spooky to someone from an older time: nay, it (be it a highway full of many lanes) would look downright hellish, and it really is a bit of destiny to hold it all together for the plight of God and for themselves. The ragtag ensemble is pretty good in conveying the foibles and lingering destiny, mostly on the shoulders of McFarlane, who actually didn't become a regular actor (instead favoring being an assistant director in films and TV), but it is true that they have a wide-eyed appeal here that works for those who understand the zeal that comes in youth. It also reflects well on Lyons (who acted in just one other film), who actually was thought of in mind by one of the co-writers (K.Lyons, who he was married to). It just so happens that the ordinary can look extraordinary in the faces of youth, and that works out to make the ending all the more ironic. It is a moody film that does look really nice while conveying a sense of adventure with its own playing of time and imagery, which does make the 93-minute runtime go off without too many hitches. As a whole, its a movie that reminds one that some folks really believe that faith can override anything, rationales be damned.

 

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.

Sweetie (1989).

Review #2364: Sweetie (1989).

Cast: 

Geneviève Lemon (Dawn / "Sweetie"), Karen Colston (Kay), Tom Lycos (Louis), Jon Darling (Gordon), Dorothy Barry (Flo), Michael Lake (Bob), Andre Pataczek (Clayton), Jean Hadgraft (Mrs. Schneller), and Paul Livingston (Teddy Schneller) Directed by Jane Campion.

Review: 

I suppose I could cover a few more New Zealanders in their vision of filmmaking, so why not Jane Campion? She was born to parents that actually had founded a theater group. She actually studied anthropology in university, but it was her studies with visual arts that helped shape an interest in filmmaking, specifically because she apparently came to a dissatisfaction with the limitations of filmmaking. She directed her first short with Tissues in 1980 and began studying at the Australian Film, Television and Radio School and made more short films. Peel (1986) won the Short Film Palme d'Or. The attention that Campion received for her short films got her to develop a feature, one that would be to "do something modern and something that pursued the interests of my own film generation". Choosing to do this over something she came up called "The Piano Lesson", the eventual movie was written by her and Gerald Lee that had its script developed in spurts over three months in 1987. The movie made a bit of money in its native Australia, and Campion obviously was encouraged to make further feature films, with An Angel at My Table (1990) being among the first of her seven subsequent features in her career.

Calling the movie as one that is revolves around family dysfunction is probably a bit too simple to go with, although the name of the movie sure has one thinking of it in their lives. Of course, the thing with these sisters is that one can gleam that really, they could be thought of as two sides of the "nut" coin. But nothing is what it seems on the surface for its 97-minute runtime that can range from curious to meandering, as if there isn't really one total take to peg the movie, although each of its sisters certainly show their own way of being starved of affection and all-around intimacy (there are those who interpret the movie as having dysfunction that really revolves around sexual abuse, but I mostly saw it as a family of people that simply refuse to accept true reality). Lemon and Colston make for a compelling double act when you look at what lurks at these people beyond the physical viewing, mainly because the movie is more about the unsaid than anything, which can lead to a bit of dark amusement (or haunted expression, but it's a give-and-go). Lemon (who had considerable experience in the theater and Australian TV in what was her second film role) plays this creature of wayward pleas and quixotic aims that we can see even in the smallest way in people we might know* to worthwhile conviction that is just as tragic as it is pathetic to see her towering presence. Heck, you see her first with a boyfriend and you barely even notice when he basically disappears from the picture, that's how much she takes the movie and rolls along in chaos that is very raw and yet is one you can see is the cog that gets things moving in the cycle of enabling and rejection. Colston has the tough task of playing a role that is filled with superstitions and hang-ups that come with a relationship that we only see in bits and parts (specifically one goes from the set-up to "months later"). She does fine enough with playing the uptight nature that comes with another side of chasing something that is hard to define in affection (Lycos merely is the normal one, at least for a guy who has a hang-up about a misplaced tree), suffice to say. Darling and Barry sell the key pieces that come with fractured people and misplaced visions that don't lend to easy resolutions. The stories crash in and out in a way that comes and goes for observations that you just have to look for yourselves when it comes to how people really are beyond words and images, which might hurt just as much as it makes for dark amusement. Ultimately, the movie is whatever you want to believe it is about: family drama, black comedy, or voyage into the strangeness that comes with people and isolation. It makes for a curious experiment for a feature debut that might just work for you, whether you know what lurks beneath the surface.

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.

*I had a half-brother who was an annoying drunk and a less tolerable person when "sober". He was a miserable person that at a point in time that could even make a crack about how someone walked in their own house. Things can get better, although it didn't occur like this film where they fell from a tree and died, no, it was slightly funnier.