The Ninth Gate, Roman Polanski's first film since the highly satisfying Death and the Maiden, starts off innocently enough. Corso (Johnny Depp) is a detective of sorts. His job is to track down rare volumes of books for his clients. Boris Balkan, played by weirdo-loving Frank Langella, hires Corso to prove the authenticity of his most prized possession: the presumably satanically-inspired The Ninth Gate.
Corso is off to Paris to track down the two other copies of the book, finding them in the hands of two famous book collectors. He soon discovers that all copies are indeed authentic, and with careful investigation he comes to realize that each book has unique characteristics that were specifically designed by the devil. All of the books are needed in order to bring about the resurrection of Satan.
Things begin to go a little sour for our boy Corso when the tomes go missing or are all but destroyed, and with the help of his `guardian angel' (played boringly by Emmanuelle Seigner) he manages to get himself out of a bunch of devilish situations.
About halfway through The Ninth Gate it becomes rather obvious where it is going. Someone will eventually stumble across all of the needed pages from the book and will manage to figure out the chant to utter to bring about the revival of the Prince of Darkness. Polanski was surely aware of that and chooses to make the journey to the inevitable end as pleasant, if that is the correct term, as possible.
Polanski has always been one of my favorite directors. With the possible exception of Maiden and Macbeth, he tends to find a rather crass humorous element seething inside of his characters and chooses to amplify those elements to an oftentimes delicious comic effect. The Ninth Gate is no exception.
It seems rather odd that Corso would try to make an effort to be more meticulous in the way he handles his books. With books these old, Corso never finds it objectionable to flip through them madly or have ashes from his cigarettes fall on them. Polanski knows this all to well and at one point has his Baroness Kessler (Barbara Jefford) admonish the quietly rebellious Corso for his careless ways.
Rosemary's Baby worked effectively because Polanski is very much attuned to the perversities that run under the skins of his characters, oftentimes presenting their eccentric behaviors in a creepy, matter-of-fact manner. We suspect the evil in his characters and he rarely lets us down. Sure, the surprise may not be as strong, but Polanski is more concerned with journeys than with end results.
The Ninth Gate moves at a very steady pace. A huge part of the film focuses on Corso's searching for the rare books and, as expected, the journey is not as fast-paced as one might find in your average action-vehicle. Still, the gorgeous cinematography of Darius Khondji and the nonchalant direction of Polanski create an atmosphere so stunning that we relish every situation in which our protagonist is placed. Certainly not as deadpan as Fearless Vampire Killers, Polanski still manages to interject his trademark elements of humor into this film. The Ninth Gate is not a grand affair by any means of the imagination. It has no profound comments to make about life or death and it is sorely lacking in character development, but the journey to the rather opaque (yet unsurprising) ending is one that is full of a highly stylized camp that one can't help but sit back and enjoy.
Corso is off to Paris to track down the two other copies of the book, finding them in the hands of two famous book collectors. He soon discovers that all copies are indeed authentic, and with careful investigation he comes to realize that each book has unique characteristics that were specifically designed by the devil. All of the books are needed in order to bring about the resurrection of Satan.
Things begin to go a little sour for our boy Corso when the tomes go missing or are all but destroyed, and with the help of his `guardian angel' (played boringly by Emmanuelle Seigner) he manages to get himself out of a bunch of devilish situations.
About halfway through The Ninth Gate it becomes rather obvious where it is going. Someone will eventually stumble across all of the needed pages from the book and will manage to figure out the chant to utter to bring about the revival of the Prince of Darkness. Polanski was surely aware of that and chooses to make the journey to the inevitable end as pleasant, if that is the correct term, as possible.
Polanski has always been one of my favorite directors. With the possible exception of Maiden and Macbeth, he tends to find a rather crass humorous element seething inside of his characters and chooses to amplify those elements to an oftentimes delicious comic effect. The Ninth Gate is no exception.
It seems rather odd that Corso would try to make an effort to be more meticulous in the way he handles his books. With books these old, Corso never finds it objectionable to flip through them madly or have ashes from his cigarettes fall on them. Polanski knows this all to well and at one point has his Baroness Kessler (Barbara Jefford) admonish the quietly rebellious Corso for his careless ways.
Rosemary's Baby worked effectively because Polanski is very much attuned to the perversities that run under the skins of his characters, oftentimes presenting their eccentric behaviors in a creepy, matter-of-fact manner. We suspect the evil in his characters and he rarely lets us down. Sure, the surprise may not be as strong, but Polanski is more concerned with journeys than with end results.
The Ninth Gate moves at a very steady pace. A huge part of the film focuses on Corso's searching for the rare books and, as expected, the journey is not as fast-paced as one might find in your average action-vehicle. Still, the gorgeous cinematography of Darius Khondji and the nonchalant direction of Polanski create an atmosphere so stunning that we relish every situation in which our protagonist is placed. Certainly not as deadpan as Fearless Vampire Killers, Polanski still manages to interject his trademark elements of humor into this film. The Ninth Gate is not a grand affair by any means of the imagination. It has no profound comments to make about life or death and it is sorely lacking in character development, but the journey to the rather opaque (yet unsurprising) ending is one that is full of a highly stylized camp that one can't help but sit back and enjoy.