Ladyhawke (1985)

Ladyhawke is a 1985 fantasy film and it really is a bit of an oddity. I think it’s a wonderful movie but I can see why it flopped at the box office. It’s totally out of step with other movies of that genre of that era. It’s also to some extent out of step with the mainstream filmmaking approaches of the 80s.

It was produced and directed by Richard Donner.

The setting is northern Italy. The time period is not specified precisely but references to the exploits of the hero’s grandfather during the Crusades might suggest the 13th or 14th centuries.

A young thief, Phillipe Gaston (Matthew Broderick), escapes from an escape-proof dungeon.

Local authority is vested in the Bishop of Aquila (played by John Wood) and the bishop wants Phillipe recaptured. He sees the young thief’s escape as a challenge to his prestige and authority. The bishop is something of a tyrant and seems to rule mostly by fear.

Phillipe encounters Etienne of Navarre (Rutger Hauer). Navarre is a rather brooding figure, obviously a man in the grip of some obsession, but in his own way he seems to be a decent man who can even be almost kindly at times. Navarre has a hawk, an impressive bird of which he is inordinately proud. There is clearly a bond between the man and the hawk.

But at nightfall Navarre disappears completely and a beautiful lady appears. She is Isabeau of Anjou (Michelle Pfeiffer). She has an animal companion as well, a wolf. There is clearly a bond between the woman and the wolf.

In fact Navarre and Isabeau are the victims of an awful curse. They were lovers, until they aroused the ire of the bishop who called on the powers of darkness to afflict with a cruel and ingenious curse. During the day Isabeau is transformed into the hawk. At night Navarre is transformed into the wolf. They can never be together in human form. They are in fact doomed to be forever together and forever apart.

A nice touch is that in their animal forms they have no knowledge of their human natures. All the wolf knows is that for some reason he must protect this woman. All the hawk knows is that somehow she belongs to this man. They can never communicate. They can only communicate very indirectly, through Phillipe.

Another very nice touch is that Phillipe is a likeable pleasant resourceful young man but he is a chronic liar. That turns out to be useful. Whenever Isabeau asks if Navarre has spoken of her Phillipe assures her that Navarre speaks constantly of the strength of his love for her. That isn’t true. Navarre is a man of few words who could never articulate his feelings in this way. Phillipe tells Isabeau lies, but they are true lies. They are the things that are in Navarre’s heart. When Navarre asks if Isabeau has spoken of him Phillipe tells him the same sorts of true lies. There are things Isabeau cannot bring herself to say but Phillipe has survived as long as he has by being extremely astute. He knows how Isabeau feels about Navarre.

When the hawk is wounded crazy old monk Imperius (Leo McKern) enters the picture. He knows something very very important, but he doesn’t know how to make Navarre and Isabeau believe it.

By the mid-80s the established formula for adventure or fantasy movies was non-stop action, spectacle, some humour and a dash of romance. When the sword-and-sorcery genre emerged the formula remained the same but with a slightly tongue-in-cheek edge.

Ladyhawke ignores this formula completely. The focus is entirely on the love story. There’s some action and some excitement but it’s handled in a low-key way and there are no spectacular action set-pieces. This is a movie that relies on mood rather than spectacle. It’s a beautiful movie but it’s beautiful in a subtle slightly dreamy way.

This is a movie that seems to be aiming for the tone of 19th century medievalism - the romantic harkening back to the days of chivalry of Sir Walter Scott’s novels, of Tennyson’s Idylls of the King and of Pre-Raphaelite painting. I think it does this very successfully.

The casting is perfect. Rutger Hauer was a guy who could wear medieval garb and make you think that he’d been dressing that way all his life. He plays Navarre as a brooding but very sympathetic figure. Nothing matters to him except for the woman he loves. It’s an obsession, but a noble obsession. Hauer does not give a conventional action hero performance. He’s much more subtle than that. We feel Navarre’s pain, but the pain is not on the surface. It’s deep within Navarre’s soul. He simply cannot live with Isabeau.

Michelle Pfeiffer is just right. The first time we see her we are struck by her fragile ethereal beauty. And we know that this is a high-born lady. There’s nothing arrogant about Isabeau, just the placid assurance of a woman who has known since childhood what it means to be a lady. Isabeau is definitely not a kickass action heroine or a feisty girl heroine. She has courage, but it is a woman’s courage.

When Phillipe meets her he knows that he is going to devote himself to the service of this lady without any hope of reward. To serve such a lady is an honour. What’s extraordinary is that Matthew Broderick and Michelle Pfeiffer make this devotion totally convincing. Somehow all three leads are able to make us believe that this world of fairy-tale romance and chivalry is real.

The Bishop of Aquila is not a conventional adventure movie larger-than-life villain. He is a man in the grip of an obession. It has lewd him to do great evil, but the obsession started as love.

Ladyhawke never really had a chance at the box office. It’s a very uncommercial movie. It goes its own way. It’s a beautiful fairy-tale romance and I adored it. Very highly recommended.