Johnny Depp gets a little devilish in The Ninth Gate, a hybrid detective story/Satanic thriller by Roman Polanski.
The Ninth Gate (1999), directed by Roman Polanski; starring Johnny Depp, Frank Langella, Lena Olin, and Emanuelle Seigner.
The Ninth Gate is a difficult film full of symbolism, but it’s not inaccessible if you pay attention. I first viewed it about ten years ago and didn't like it very much (in common with a lot of critics who slammed it when it was first released.) I recently watched it again and have changed my opinion; it's actually a good, but not great, entry into the Polanski canon.
In this film, we see Polanski returning to the world of devil-worshipping, the same subject that he used to make his name as a director. This film, however, is significantly different in tone and plot from his ground-breaking 60s masterpiece, Rosemary’s Baby (1968). It's got a lot going for it, but there is one glaring flaw that keeps it from being all that it could be (read on).
Depp plays a sleazeball rare book dealer from New York named Dean Corso. He is hired by a fabulously wealthy book collector named Boris Balkan (played by the always-excellent Frank Langella), who has just purchased a very rare 17th Century book on Satanism, entitled The Nine Gates of the Kingdom of Shadows. Only three copies of the book exist in the entire world.
Balkan wants Corso to examine the other two books to see if there are any discrepancies among the three copies. He offers Corso an enormous sum to complete the task. Corso agrees to the deal and takes possession of Balkan’s copy. He leafs through the book and notes that it has nine mystical-looking engravings depicting various oblique occult scenes, similar to the imagery on tarot cards. He leaves the rare book with his partner Bernie, who has a secure hiding place in his book shop.
Soon, however, Bernie turns up dead, hanging upside down in the same manner depicted in one of the engravings. Corso grabs the book and returns to his apartment, where he encounters Lianna Tilfer (Lena Olin), the widow of the man who sold the book to Balkan. Lianna tries to get the book back but doesn’t succeed. Corso then travels to Europe in search of the other two books.
One book is owned by a collector named Fargas in Portugal, and the other one is owned by a Baroness Kessler in Paris. Corso visits both collectors and is allowed to compare both books with Balkan’s copy. He discovers that three of the engravings differ in each book in small ways, i.e. a castle is drawn with three turrets instead of four.
In Portugal, Corso also consults with two book sellers, the Cineza bothers, who know the Nine Gates book very well. They tell him that the different images were created by Lucifer himself, who signed them “LCF.” Corso later realizes that combining the three LCF-signed images from each book will create a complete, alternate set of the nine engravings.
He tells Balkan about his discovery. Later, both Fargas and the Baroness are murdered, and their books destroyed, but with the LCF engravings ripped out and stolen. Meanwhile, Corso is stalked and menaced by a mysterious black man with platinum hair. He also meets a strange young woman with no name (Emanuelle Seigner, aka the current Mrs. Polanski) who helps him fend off attacks from the stalker and anyone else who gets in the way, as Corso tries to solve the riddle of the book. Importantly, "The Girl" demonstrates supernatural powers in one brief scene that's easy to miss.
In the end, after a wild journey involving many murders, devil-worshippers, and occult practioners, Corso does find the missing LCF engravings and combines all nine of them to solve the riddle of the book. Without revealing spoilers, let’s just say that he becomes a different person all together after combining the engravings.
The Ninth Gate is an intriguing puzzle that combines a film noir detective story with the Satanic thriller genre (much like Alan Parker’s Angel Heart (1987), which it greatly resembles.) It features plenty of the Polanski claustrophobic style: for example there’s a scene in Bernie’s below-street book shop, where his killers’ legs can be seen pacing back and forth through the street-level top window, while Bernie and Corso converse obliviously.
The score is fantastic; it pays its respects to Jerry Goldsmith’s legendary Omen score without ripping it off. Depp turns in a decent performance as Corso and most of the major supporting performances are excellent, with a special shout-out to Barbara Jefford as the Baroness.
The Fatal Flaw
There is one glaring fly in the ointment, however, and that is Mrs. Polanski in her role as the mysterious “Girl.” She’s just awful. To put it bluntly, the orca who plays the title role in Free Willy has better acting chops than Emanuelle Seigner. She’s supposed to be playing a smoldering, seductive temptress and she ends up just looking like a bored dilettante with a case of heartburn. Her delivery is so flat it could be a cornfield in Kansas. Seigner's filmography in the IMDb confirms that almost all of her “acting” credits are in films directed by...get ready for it...Roman Polanski. I guess love truly is blind.
Seigner's performance isn’t a total dealbreaker for this film, but it does make the difference between a good film and a great one. Polanski could have cast a sexy, beautiful actress who actually can act — like Theresa Russell or Uma Thurman — and The Ninth Gate would have been close to a home run.
