THE NINTH GATE (63)

Directed by: Roman Polanski

Starring: Johnny Depp, Frank Langella, Emmanuelle Seigner

The Pitch: A rare-book dealer is commissioned to track down and compare all existing copies of an ancient book with the power to summon up Lucifer himself.

Theo Sez: Rating should be taken with a pinch of salt : this doesn't really work as a film, by the simple yardstick that its second hour is significantly less interesting than the first. Partly it's a question of (over-)familiar narrative, partly down to some lazy writing : our hero's strategy for evading the baddies - ducking into a café, in full view of his pursuer, then just sitting there all day hoping said pursuer will go away - is pretty stupid, and the notion of Satan literally collaborating on a book, with 'his' pages neatly marked "LCR" (for "Lucifer"), is about on a par with God leaving little Post-It notes signed "G". Yet those are also the elements that make it irresistible, planting it firmly in the thoroughly familiar, wildly implausible genre known as "hokum", a world (like Dracula's Transylvania) of secret knowledge and imposing castles, and bewhiskered old coves saying things like "Old families are like ancient civilisations - they wither and die" (the same character has a hokum-defining moment when our hero introduces himself at the front door : "Corso, Corso ... Ah yes, come in") ; above all, a world where power resides in musty old books - even if the film feels the need to translate that power into money, as THE THOMAS CROWN AFFAIR did with its paintings - harking back to ancient secrets from a time when Man lived closer to the world of spirits. It's a kind of intellectual nostalgia, which may be why this kind of tale never delivers (even the best example, Umberto Eco's "Foucault's Pendulum", is in fact a shaggy-dog story) : the ending's a damp squib, and Seigner takes away mystery and nuance each time she appears. Yet the build-up is like visiting an old friend, and the atmosphere is familiar in a different way, building stark, oppressive images in a light that turns bright sunshine into an unhealthy parchment-yellow (I actually guessed Khondji's contribution even before his name appeared in the opening credits). Grungy chic without the tedious solemnity of (say) FALLEN - everyone seems to be having a good time ; and is it merely fanciful to discern a measure of revenge in Polanski-the-exile's apparent taste for bringing Americans to Paris (FRANTIC, BITTER MOON) just so he can put them through hell?...