THE NINTH GATE

REVIEWED BY CHARITY BISHOP

Our rating: 1 out of 5

Because of: sexual content, nudity, supernatural themes

Rated:

Ambiguous endings have always been popular with writers who want you to determine for yourself what happens after a series of events unfold. But if a writer fails to explain most of the solutions to the problems in the character's life, all that is left is a story without a conclusion. This is the fate of The Ninth Gate, one of the most spiritually disturbing films I've seen in a long time.

A pen scribbles across a page. The old man carefully folds the note and fits it into an envelope. His slippers make soft sounds against the expensive carpeting as he walks to the chair and climbs up on it, fitting his head through the noose. A rapid jerk. The chandelier rips several inches from the ornate tiling above. The library is completely tranquil, despite the body hanging in its midst. Only one thing is missing: a book from his collection. The volume is the Ninth in the Book of Shadows, a volume said to have been penned by Lucifer himself to foretell how to unleash his power into the world at the end of time. It falls into the hands of Boris Balkan (Frank Langella), a renowned expert on Satanic events. Only three volumes are in existence; the rest were burned by the church when their author was martyred. Balkan is interested in proving the authenticity of the volume by comparing it with the others. For this task, he calls in unscrupulous book detective Dean Corso (Johnny Depp).

Though the volume was obtained through official means, Corso finds the original owner's wife (Lena Olin) unwilling to relinquish her claim to it. There are other events that bring him cause for concern. His apartment is ransacked. He's attacked in the park. He sees strange visions of a green-eyed woman in the library. The man he entrusted to keep the volume safe is found hanging upside down by one leg in his shop, in a perfect reflection of one of the ornate drawings inside the Book of Shadows. Traveling to Spain, Corso examines the second volume with the first and finds discrepancies. Some of the pages have slight alterations in the artwork: keys are moved from one hand to the other, bricked up passages are missing. Balkan tells him to obtain the second volume at all costs, but when Corso comes to make an offer, with the assistance of his green-eyed beauty (Emmanuelle Seigner), he finds the owner ruthlessly murdered and the book burned beyond recognition.

The more he studies the engravings, the more Corso becomes enthralled with the demonic forces unraveling around him, leading him ultimately to a cult that desires to use the volume for their own evil purposes. What the film proposes is a thinly veiled bid for Satanism. There are no good forces to combat evil, no Christian authority figure (or even presence) to bring the balance. Two of the book owners are active Satanists, preoccupied with the occult and demons. The green-eyed woman is never identified but we may presume that she's either Lucifer in feminine form, or the Whore of Babylon, depicted riding a six-headed beast in one of the illustrations. Rather than being put off by the evil surrounding him, Corso becomes fascinated. He wants those pages just as much as Balkan does, and the ending shows him on his way to unleash hell upon the earth through a dark ritual. There's nothing concerning Jesus or Christianity, except in flippant references to the Church confiscating and destroying most editions of the book.

Gruesome deaths permeate some of the plot, which is ingenious until it turns demonic. The movie is very slow moving but the audience is captivated, which makes its questionable ending so disturbing. It's like building up excitement and then falling flat on your face, because there's no outlet for the tension. The most marvelous thing about the film is its gorgeous soundtrack. But otherwise, I wouldn't recommend it on any basis. There is not a lot of language, but three abuses of Jesus' name, one GD, and an f-word enter the dialogue. The violence is also not horrific: one woman is graphically strangled with a necklace displaying a pentagram. Corso turns a person around to find her eyes bugged and tongue hanging out. A man dumps kerosene on himself and lights it afire, then starts to scream as he realizes that he's being burned to death. A man shoots another man. There are several fistfights. A woman pulls up her skirt suggestively, showing off all of her bare thigh and part of her skimpy underwear, to entice a man. She touches his groin while reaching for a brandy. The two are then implied to have had sex on the floor.

Backside nudity on Satan worshippers is seen on more than one occasion. More disturbing is a scene right at the end of the film, where Corso has sex with his green-eyed demonic guardian. It involves movement, implied pain, and female upper nudity. I presume it's some kind of satanic ritual to make him worthy of entering Satan's presence. A van driver flips the finger at a car following close behind. There was nothing redeeming about the film. I expected to find at least the forces of good coming in to combat the impending doom, but they never arrived. The complete lack of God, the transformation of the main character into a minion of darkness, and the rituals preformed, make The Ninth Gate disturbing viewing for Christians, and highly confusing for the unsaved. I found myself constantly wishing that I'd popped in Bless the Child instead, where good triumphs over evil, as it should be.