Ladyhawke
A medieval story to the bone, in the form of the standard silly fantasy film of the 80’s. Sort of a Dune in tights.
Our protagonist is a lovable rogue, petty thief, and a Protestant who thinks you can talk to God directly. He breaks out of the Alcatraz of its day, through the sewers as you should (see The Rock, The Shawshank Redemption), reaches a tavern, but his big mouth leads to his re-capture. But wait, for Scarlett Pimpernel is here to save him. The guards are routed when they see Captain Navarre, former captain of the guard, defending the freedom of an escaped convict.
Navarre has some blood feud with the bishop (Aringarosa?) of Aquila, and is intent on killing him. His trusted steed Goliath, and his tracker Hawk accompany him always. Our protagonist is added to the party, not exactly of his own volition, obeying as a peasant should. After dark, sorcery involving hawks and wolves surrounds him, out protagonist wants to bolt, but is bound to serve one of his betters.
After another skirmish with the Bishop’s men, the hawk is wounded by a bolt, and milord is horrified, he is willing to fix this no matter what. Our protagonist rides to a nearby priest, a drunken mess who sobers up when Navarre’s name come up. He treats the bird, which after sunset turns into a high-born lady of alabaster skin. Naturally, our protagonist goes completely gaga over such woman. The priest reveals the rest of the origin story.
Navarre and Isabeau d’Anjou are star-crossed lovers, cursed by the wicked bishop to be always together, but separate. While she is a hawk by day and woman by night, he is a man by day and wolf by night. Thus, they can never coexist in human form, till the end of times. A man of cloth robbed a nobleman of his God-given right to a woman over sexual lust, what a wicked fiend! Even Rome shunned him (how? Is the Antipope involved?). Their relationship was a secret, but their confessor (said drunken priest) blurted it out during a drunken stupor, the secret was out.
In the wee hours, the Bishop’s gendarmes come calling, and the wounded lady needs to escape. They get to the tower, and our lady falls just as the sun rises, saving her life by turning into a hawk in midair. That curse was a blessing. The lord uses his marksman skill to save the rogue.
After a good night’s sleep followed by adrenaline shots, our priest prophesies the curse might be lifted soon, when there’s day without night and night without day. Savvy people know it’s an eclipse, but medieval dumbasses think it’s a sign of God. The lord doesn’t give a shit, he doesn’t trust the priest that betrayed him once, and his bloodlust seems unstoppable.
Our rogue follows the lord again, no longer under threat of violence, but for genuine care of merging the star-crossed lovers. He steals clothes so our lady does not need to shame herself in the stable they are spending the night in. They dance and drink, but our protagonist knows his place and friendzones himself.
This is where the trapper comes in. He is hired by the bishop to kill all the wolves he finds, but none are the right one, the wolfman. After tracking the woman, the wolf follows nearby. The traps are set, but not only does he avoids it, the lady throws him head-first into one of this traps, killing him in a gruesome death.
In the next day, the wolf appears on the ice and they fail to trap him properly, which means the wolf needs rescuing from a frozen lake. Out protagonist does it selflessly, but nobless oblige, our lord apologises and attempts the daring plan of the lower-class dudes.
They all reach Aquila, the lord goes confront the Bishop, but our protagonist sneaked around to avoid the Bishop’s death (like any good christian). It doesn’t avoid the death of the new captain of the guard though, what an incompetent.
Just as the eclipse is happening, Ladyhawke appears and prevents second-degree murder in front of a massive audience. The Bishop doesn’t give up even they prepare to leave and tried to attack, it is his downfall: the lord throws his claymore and impales him with extreme prejudice, right there on the bishop’s cathedra.
Technically, it’s a medieval setting mixed with silly boinking with swords, overuse of ADR, archaic effects. The main love story happens offscreen, and we are expected to believe the couple loves each other, but they never met! Most of the love poems they recite are fantasies authored by rogue, pushing the couple together.
By the time the rogue and the lady dance, I was fully expecting a modern take on the story, where the lady fell for him instead. The lord, upon noticing this, would become furious, and would not redeem himself upon hearing the rogue saved his life. On the final confrontation, when the lady reveals herself, the bishop and the rogue would murder each other after hearing she wanted a commoner. The redeemed priest would be glad to marry our new lovebirds. The end, love prevailed in the end.
Alas, is was not to be. The lower class was unable to write, not they were class conscious. A third option: the Inquisition burned all their books a couple centuries later. Feel free to remake this, with another setting if you think non-gritty medieval fantasies are old-fashioned.
This is my place for ramblings about sequences of images that exploit the human visual limitation know as persistence of vision.