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08 August 2006

the ninth gate [More:]
I need to be asleep, but I have found it impossible and so I turned on the tv. Flipping channels brought me to The Ninth Gate. It is not that well liked, I have seen it trashed repeatedly on various sites, but I have a fondness for it. It is probably the only movie relating to the Lucifer myths that I like at all. Anybody else like it?
Me.
posted by seanyboy 08 August | 01:54
Is that the one with Johnny Depp as a sleazy bookseller?
posted by taz 08 August | 04:10
A lot of it creeped me out, and not in a good way. But some of it was good.
posted by muddgirl 08 August | 07:15
I love the intro especially, with the camera moving through the books/gates.
posted by shane 08 August | 07:24
I thought it was pretty great, actually. It has a sinister feel that we haven't had since the late 60s, back when evil plots in b-movies all involved covens and cults in remote places, always culminating in a final confrontation in the ringleader's ancestral castle or a deconsecrated cathedral.

Actually, that same sense for Luciferian myth can be found in Constantine. While the film strayed pretty far from its Vertigo Comic origins, the look and style were well worth seeing.
posted by grabbingsand 08 August | 09:27
I really disliked it, but the novel it's based on, Arturo Perez-Reverte's The Club Dumas, is one of my favorites (and I read it after I saw the film, so it didn't influence my opinion).

I do think Constantine was underappreciated.
posted by goatdog 08 August | 10:37
I really liked Constantine despite Keanu. I thought the characters were great especially Satan and Gabriel.
posted by LunaticFringe 08 August | 10:40
I like both The Ninth Gate and Contstantine, but I tend to like most religious-theme horror/action movies.
posted by deborah 08 August | 11:34
Fan of The Ninth Gate.

Now, the girl - is she lucifer, or a succubus who's trying to help lucifer get back into hell, or...?
posted by porpoise 08 August | 13:34
The book and the movie are significantly different (I actually prefer the movie, one of the few that does, I imagine) so I will state my thoughts on the film only.

I have had two theories about the girl. The first is that she is his guardian angel and that he has been chosen by god/the light/whatever to discover the truth so the other two fail. I say this because despite the fact that he is far from a saint, he seems driven by a quest for knowledge rather than evil, and that in the end he is less likely to try bringing forth Lucifer after all that he has seen. The ending with him going through the gate can be taken literally, but I think it is representing the fact that he now has the answer; the knowledge is his to destroy, to use for its intended purpose, whatever.

But by the end of the film you can easily come to the conclusion that he has went from the average sinner to a servant of Lucifer. Which is my other theory on the girl, she is protecting him because she is an agent of Lucifer and this everyman is more to the devil’s liking than the other two. Lucifer might prefer corrupting the man who wants knowledge rather than the two pitiful dogs that were already thoroughly ruined… the fruit from the tree fable and all. Perhaps Lucifer even has to take an average man and turn him to his service in order for it to work.

The almost demonic appearance of the girl during the sex scene and her disregard for people dying supports this theory. Then again, there is no reason that a servant of a vengeful god has to be surrounded by light, but that is always the way the good guys (well mostly) are portrayed in these types of movies. So I sort of like the idea of her being an agent of god rather than a fallen angel or other minion of the devil since it is at least something of a new wrinkle for this type of tale.

As for what actually happens when the true engravings are all brought together, perhaps it is the gift of unholy power as Boris seemed to think, or perhaps the end of the journey is the discoverer becoming the antichrist.
posted by weretable and the undead chairs 08 August | 14:24
I thought the film was a portrait of a greedy man (Depp) being seduced over to the dark side, which presumably carries a price... The woman was the seductress who tempted him and facilitated his "destiny"...
posted by shane 08 August | 15:12
stuff I find amazing || dogs + soccer fan = animal cruelty

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