Like Wolves and Hawks

There's a kind of fantasy story not often seen in movies or literature anymore in this age of the superhero blockbuster, the story of the regular little fellow caught up in a grand adventure with larger than life, ethereal archetypes. This is the pattern 1985's Ladyhawke follows. It's clear director Richard Donner and screenwriter Tom Mankiewicz had done some research into what a fantasy story is before making the film but I think they failed to really connect with the heart of fantasy. The resulting film is a product of an understanding of fantasy on an intellectual level, maybe even coming from a genuine appreciation of fantasy film, but is for the most part a sterilised skeleton.

Matthew Broderick plays the "regular little fellow" here, a thief named Philippe "The Mouse" Gaston, who as the movie opens manages to escape a legendarily inescapable dungeon in Aquila. The movie is told from his point of view and he has frequent asides to the camera in which he addresses God, humorously promising future good behaviour in return for divine intervention in whatever doom is impending--and then almost immediately transgressing in precisely the way he promised he wouldn't.

So this sets him up as distinct from the three comrades he falls in with who all make passionate vows the breaking of which always have serious consequences. As our POV character, though, Philippe must investigate his mysterious and taciturn comrades for us before we learn anything about them.

The first one he meets is Rutger Hauer as former captain of the guard Etienne Navarre who rescues Philippe from his former comrades in arms. We eventually learn Etienne is cursed to turn into a wolf at night and the hawk he carries on his arm is by night the woman for whose love the two of them were cursed, Isobeau, played by Michelle Pfeiffer.

Despite the film's title, the story turns much more Etienne who must choose between breaking his vow to murder the Bishop of Aquila, who cursed Etienne and Isobeau out of jealousy by calling on Satan, or heeding the monk played by Leo McKern who says there's a way of breaking the curse but only if he doesn't kill the bishop. The thematic momentum is towards this movie showing how vengeance is inherently bad but Donner clearly has no conviction in this idea.

Without this, all we're left with is a story about how true love is really, really important except, although Broderick is funny acting as go-between for the two lovers who can never meet in human form, the very premise of the film prevents any chemistry from developing between the lovers. Which is too bad--Rutger Hauer is rather badass in the film. He has some nice action scenes and there's a cool moment in the beginning where he bats away a sword with his hand. Michelle Pfeiffer is pretty but she functions pretty much as baggage, not having really anything to do.

And maybe one could argue that's the place of a female character in this kind of movie. Yet one of my fondest examples of this Little Flawed POV Character with Big Heroic Archetype Companions style story is Kurosawa's The Hidden Fortress where the Princess Yuki's initiative drives many of the story's events. That film and The Hobbit as well as Lord of the Rings demonstrate by contrast another flaw in Ladyhawke which is that those stories featured genuinely flawed point of view characters whose sometimes selfish or unwise motives could have very serious consequences. Philippe, for being the every man, is very quickly and lazily turned into a saint whose actions and motives are always the most improbably virtuous of any character in the film.

The movie does have some gorgeous cinematography by Vittorio Storaro, on location in Italy, with beautiful castles and mist shrouded forests. The film's costumes are a bit bland, looking generally too clean. And the music, produced by Alan Parsons, has been justifiably called one of the worst soundtracks in history, ill suited for subject matter both in tone and style. A beautiful shot of guards galloping in pursuit of Philippe is accompanied by incongruously funky keyboard and bass guitar bringing to mind a low budget pornographic film.

Twitter Sonnet #622

Blue water colour tabard blends the leg.
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Burning Punch has broke a wet oaken keg.
May's daughter was hid by the claymore mound.
The solicitous mammal recalls bread.
Eocene sentiments reduce the fur.
Doppler effects pitch what wooden bats said.
Reddened yarn stitches become a pink blur.
Recombined citrus heads grin from the cup.
Horseless gallops knock over the coin purse.
Telephone hills pull frantic echoes up.
Eyebrow lobsters wire a new gum curse.
Blind hawks wait outside the bad luncheon's church.
Snowcapped sorcery was willed to a birch.