Visual Communication or Narrative?

During the course of creating my media product, I have found that visual communication is as important if not more as the narrative when writing a script. I feel this ideology is mirrored in many others' work who I have analysed so far and I wonder whether this is in fact a general consensus. A narrative is that alone but visual communication allows the audience to interact with the production and supplies them with the tool of analysis in order to fully attain the messages that the creator of the media product aims to deliver. Every memorable cinematic experience I have is vividly emblazoned with the memory of immaculate art direction and carefully structured visual communication, this notion is one that will heavily influence my media product and allow me to carefully construct visual elements that can connote and denote meanings. In effect, allowing my media product to be interpreted by the audience the way I intend it to. The question isn't the hierarchy of a media product, whether narrative prevails or visual communication, my general perception is that one is ineffective without the other.