Ladyhawke is an excellent fantasy film set in medeival FRANCE. The main characters are Etienne Navarre (Rutger Hauer), Isabeau (Michelle Pfeiffer), Phillipe Gaston (Matthew Broderick), the Bishop of Aquila (John Wood I), Marquet (Ken Hutchinson), and the monk Imperious (Leo McKern).
The story begins with the young pickpocket, Phillipe "the mouse", escaping fromt he historically unescapable dungeons of the great city of Aquila
There has been a bit of controversy over the setting of the story. Many reviewers were under the impression that it took place in Spain. Etienne is a French name. And can you get much more French than Isabeau or Phillipe Gaston?????? Please....
On with the story....
Phillipe escapes and is pursued by the Bishop's guards because the Bishop fears that this small incedent could possibly cause a rebellion and he doesn't want that.
Phillipe stops to change his clothes and eventually stops at a small town to have a drink and to gloat about his escape....
But the Bishop's guards are lying in wait for him and have just caught him when a strange, dark man with a large, magnificent horse, comes to his rescue. We learn that this is the former captain of the guard, Etienne Navarre. He has nothing wiht him and his horse, but a saddlebag of oddments, and a magnificent hawk.
There is a fight, and eventually Phillipe and Navarre escape. They travel to a small farm and aquire lodgings for themselves in a barn. During the night, as Phillipe is coming back from gathering wood for the fire, the farmer comes up behind him in an attempt to kill him and take the money pouch he stole from a guard and carries around with him. Well, out of nowhere, apparently, a large black wolf attacks the farmer and kills him.
Phillipe is trying to string the crossbow to kill the wolf, after failing to find Navarre anywhere in the vicinity of the barn, when he is stopped by a woman.
She simply quiets him down and goes out, then tells him he is dreaming. He climbs the hay loft and sees her walking with the wolf, and gets freaked out.
He and Navarre continue traveling a bit the next day, after stopping to sleep for a few hours.
Meanwhile, Marquet is racing like mad to get back to Aquila to tell the Bishop that Navarre had returned. He arrives, tells the Bishop - who is disturbed by the news. He sends Marquet out and calls his man and tells him "Get me Cezar!"
Meanwhile, Phillipe is up and playing about with Navarre's sword. Navarre stops him and explains the significance of the great sword. In the telling, he says his mission is the kill the Bishop. Then, Phillipe attempts to take his leave of the Captain, but fails.
That night, the lady Phillipe saw the night before is running thru the woods, chasing a rabbit. She is startled and looses the rabbit when she hears Phillipe's voice. SHe turns to find him tied to a tree. He pleads wiht her, she frees him and then he runs off.
The next morning, Navarre sets off in search of Phillipe. Phillipe, however, has found himself caught by the Bishop's guards and they get out of him which way Navarre is headed.
Navarre is ambushed, there is a battle, he defeats all his opponents, but the hawk is struck with a stray arrow and falls to the ground. Navarre himself is wounded, struck in the shoulder, so he commisions Phillipe to take the hawk for help. He instructs him to go to a ruined castle and ask for Brother Imperious.
Phillipe takes the bird to Imperious. Imperious leaves the room with the hawk to gather herbs, as the sun sets.
In the monk's absense, Phillipe sneaks back into the room, to find, not a hawk on the bed, but the woman he had seen the past two nights.
Imperious comes back and chases Phillipe out, but later, after removing the arrow from the lady's shoulder, joins Phillipe around the outdoor fire. He tells Phillipe the story of Navarre.
Isabeau (the lady) moved to Aquila to live with a cousin after her father died. She was very beautiful and the Bishop fell in lust with her. But she felt how evil he was and shunned him. She was in love with the Captain of the Guard, Etienne Navarre. They confessed their secret vows to their joint confessor - Imperious. But, in a drunken state, he revealed their vows to the Bishop, who vowed that if he could not have Isabeau, no man would.
So, Navarre and Isabeau fled from Aquila, but the Bishop hunted them down and struck a deal with the devil to damn the two lovers. Hell's fury twisted together an evil curse. By day, Isabeau is a hawk, by night, Navarre is a wolf. They are, "...always together, eternally apart...". They can never touch in the flesh.
The next day the Bishop's guards come to raid the castle in search for the various fugitives. Phillipe and Isabeau struggle up an ancient tower and Isabeau gets knocked off, Phillipe holds her, but can't get her up. As she falls, she transforms into her hawk form.
The guards are defeated. And Navarre thanks Imperious for his help. Then Imperious tells him that God has given him the answer of how the curse may be broken. Isabeau and Navarre must face the Bishop as man and woman in three days, because on that day, there will be a day without a night, and a night without a day. Navarre doesn't buy it, he just want's to kill the Bishop. Phillipe stops him before he leaves and asks to tag along, and so he does. Imperious follows and that night, they decide to trap Navarre as a wolf and keep him there so that he will arrive at Aquila on the correct day. They are waiting while Isabeau crosses the ice to meet the wolf. But Navarre falls thru the ice. Phillipe and Isabeau rescue him.
In the morning, Navarre sees the error of his ways and waits a day to arrive in Aquila. They go to Aquila and Phillipe heads down thru the moat to get thru and go up the grating from the sewer to the cathedral so that he can have the door opened from the inside for Navarre to enter. In the meantime, Imperious, Isabeau and the caged wolf enter the city and spend the night. The next day everything is the the same, so Navarre decides that he must kill the Bishop and Imperious is wrong.
Phillipe has the cathedral door open just in time for Navarre to enter on horseback. But before he reaches the Bishop, Marquet enters on horseback and they fight. They continue to fight until Navarre sees, thru the shattered skylight, a lunar eclipse. He kills Marquet and is about to kill the Bishop, which would cause the curse to go on forever, when Isabeau shows up. She is headed for Navarre when the Bishop is about to kill him, so Navarre turns and throws his sword at the Bishop. The Bishop is killed. Navarre and Isabeau live happily ever after cuz they faced the Bishop as man and woman.
The End
Sorry it was so long...I just have trouble condensing stories cuz I can't imagine leaving stuff out.....BTW, I typed that whole freaking thing by myself and it took a long time. I'm darn proud of it.
This page was last updated June 14th, 1998
