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. Filming of The Navigator was extremely difficult, due to the elaborate nature of some of the shots (for example one featuring a horse in a dinghy), the remoteness of some of the locations, and Ward's perfectionism. Lake Harris, where some of the medieval scenes were filmed, is 1000 metres above sea level and the crew could only film when the area was too cold for mountaineering. In addition, the crew had just ten weeks to shoot the entire film and much of the filming was done at night. After seeing the film, Werner Herzog, who is known for extremely difficult shoots, was reported to have said that "it must have been hard to make". In 1989 Ward said that "I'll never do this sort of film again, full stop. That's because it was just too gruelling for everyone". 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. Cast Bruce Lyons as Connor: The Navigator was one of