The Ninth Gate (1999)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

The Ninth Gate (1999) – R. Polanski

Is this a guilty pleasure?  I’ve returned to it more than once -- but it isn’t exactly challenging fare and some may call it trashy.  Somehow director Roman Polanski evokes both the detective story and the devil (providing nods to two of his greatest films, Chinatown and Rosemary’s Baby); a more recent antecedent is probably Alan Parker’s Angel Heart (1987).  Frank Langella hires freelance bookdealer Johnny Depp to determine whether his copy of a rare book (“The Nine Gates…”), a book apparently used to conjure Lucifer himself, is authentic or not, as compared to two other copies in Europe.  How Langella got the book away from Lena Olin whose husband has just committed suicide isn’t really clear but she wants it back and pursues Depp for it.  So, they all run to Europe where Depp visits each of the other book owners, unravelling the mystery of the books while also being stalked by a mysterious witchy woman (Emmanuelle Seigneur, Polanski’s wife) and leaving death and destruction in his wake.  Of course, we know that Depp isn’t really pulling the strings here but what mysterious forces are driving things (whether controlled by Langella or someone/something darker) remains out of the viewer’s grasp. And the film ends at a sort of beginning (much like Rosemary’s Baby again?), leaving viewers only to imagine what comes next.  Based on Arturo Pérez-Reverte’s The Club Dumas.