The Ninth Gate
***
Rated on a 4-star
scale
Screening venue: Odeon (Bromborough)
Released in the UK by UIP on June 2, 2000; certificate 15; 133 minutes; countries
of origin France/Spain/USA; aspect ratio 2.35:1
Directed by Roman Polanski; produced by
Mark Allan, Antonio Cardenal, Inaki Nunez, Roman
Polanski, Alain Vannier. Written by John Brownjohn, Roman
Polanski, Enrique Urbizu; based on the novel "El Club Dumas" by
Aturo Pérez-Reverte. Photographed by Darius Kondjhi;
edited by Hervé de Luze.
CAST.....
Johnny Depp..... Dean Corso
Emmanuelle Seigner..... The Girl
Frank Langella..... Boris Balkan
Lena Olin..... Liana Telfer
Barbara Jefford..... Baroness Kessler
Jack Taylor..... Victor Fargas
James Russo..... Bernie
Chandeliers are grand, ornate and thoroughly
ridiculous, and sometimes fall down on people. Roman Polanski's "The
Ninth Gate" is like that -- a supernatural thriller and detective
movie that begins by playing tricks with its genre and ends up playing one
on the audience. It deliberately leaves us unsatisfied, but is silly and
goofy and a whole lot of fun.
Johnny Depp stars as Dean Corso, a rare book dealer
hired by a strange collector (Frank Langella) to track down a book entitled
"The Nine Gates of the Kingdom of Shadows". Legend has it that its illustrations,
when used in satanic ritual, can summon up Lucifer himself. Corso, in trying
to find it, runs into one strange person after another, and we are reminded
of such films as "The Big Sleep" and "Angel Heart", although "The Ninth Gate"
is goofier, and the structure and details of the plot make it extremely
predictable.
Until, that is, the last act, when the
fire-and-brimstone conclusion we've been expecting doesn't happen, and there
is a confusing final shot that leaves us wondering whether Corso has lost
power over his soul, sold it, or gone to battle.
Polanski, the director, is manipulating us. He
knows how to make a serious detective movie ("Chinatown"), tale of witchcraft
("Macbeth"), or movie about the Devil ("Rosemary's Baby") -- but he's decided
to forget about that and have a little fun. The early scenes involve us with
a subtle, odd sense of humour: they undermine the seriousness of the plot
by focusing on ridiculous images like a light fixture a guy hung himself
on; and by letting Depp skulk through the movie with an eyebrow raised, as
he did in "Sleepy Hollow". Then the anti-climactic nature of the ending reveals
that Polanski's chuckles extend to us, because he's toying with us just as
surely as he is with the film noir genre. Odd, but not
uninteresting.
COPYRIGHT© 2000 Ian
Waldron-Mantgani
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