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The Ninth Gate
(***1/2)
Despite negative criticisms at the film's release, Roman Polanski's "The Ninth Gate" is not a bad film. The worst criticism I can muster is that perhaps this is what happens when a true artist is having a bad day. However, from the opening shot to the credits, Polanski gives a great new spin on a tired old villain.
Johnny Depp stars as Dean Corso, a rare book dealer of unscrupulous morality who finds himself drawn into the secrets of one of the last remaining copies of "The Nine Gates Of the Shadow Kingdom"; a book which was reportedly cowritten by Lucifer himself. He's brought in by the new owner of one of these books (Langella), and he's adament that only one of the three surviving copies are genuine, and he enlists Corso to find and examine the other two.
Of the many things he learns, most important is that someone wants this book bad enough to kill for it, and Corso doesn't know whom to suspect. The widow of the previous owner of his copy (Olin) seems incredibly interested, sending a minion after him for it. Another suspicious person is an unnamed beautiful woman (Senger), who seems to possess supernatural powers.
Unlike Polanski's previous film to deal with Satan, "Rosemary's Baby", this one is unequivocally supernatural. In Rosemary's Baby, it was quite possible to interpret the whole ordeal as the result of Rosemary's insanity. However, here it's undoubtedly the work of the devil. As a result, there is no real stopping point. The story holds such an ending, and so Polanski keeps the story relatively straightforward throughout. Plot twists aside, it's pretty obvious who the real bad guy is.
The "bad guy" is worth mention here. Unlike previous disasters to show Satan in the "flesh", we don't actually see anything about it. The point of the movie is to get to Satan, but all the antagonists are as mortal as Corso, although the woman he meets seems to be something more. This sort of plot point is important because it reveals what is really great about directors like Polanski. Sometimes it's more terrifying to imply the danger rather than to expressly show it. Sure, Gabriel Byrne wasn't bad in "End of Days", but it's much more stylish and artistic to imply.
This is what defines most directors working today from directors like Roman Polanski. While I don't really *hate* the quick cutting method that many directors employ today, I feel that it has its place. To see a movie filled with nothing but shots afforded 2 seconds is tiring after a point, and it's refreshing to see a film by a director with the intelligence to plan his shots out enough so that we actually are interested in each one. The actors here aren't as important as where they are. It's important that Depp click as Corso, and he really does. But constant closeups just make me ill. Show the actor, and show where he is. Where he is is just as important as who he is. if not more.
Perhaps we need some new blood in hollywood, but the new blood should be transfused from the old.