Posted by Lucifer Lyndon Razoodock at spider-tj084.proxy.aol.com on July 20, 2000 at 21:25:21:
The Satanic League should really be up in arms over Roman Polanski's "The Ninth Gate."
Well, alright. There may be no such thing, but has anyone watched, comprehended and reflected on the film's tone and message?
The concept is like the anti-Christ reverse of "DOGMA." Misguided meglomaniac tries to use an existing Satanic text to pass through a gate and enter Hell.
Along the way, he is thwarted by a figure chosen by the lower powers, as it were, aided by familiars who seem to have risen from the fire to help him out.
*SPOILERS*
What's intriguing is that when Depp's intrepid seeker willfully embraces Hell and passes through the gate at the end, the film presents this occurence (as it does with all of the other Hell-influence throughout the narrative) as miraculous...
It's also intriguing the way the film blurs its edginess with quirky humor, usually in the form of repoir between the film's characters.
Bottom-line: "The Ninth Gate" is the happy-go-lucky tale of one intelectuals pursuit and attainment of the evil within himself...and of Hell, itself.
Still, "The Ninth Gate" has pretty much been ignored by the moral right as far as I know.
Would that be (in anyone's opinion) because for all of it's celebration of intellectual amorality, it doesn't ever contradict the Gospels, or the majority's existing (highly conservative) notion of what the scriptures mean?
"The Ninth Gate" may celebrate the pursuit of Lucifer, but it's okay because it doesn't deign to pontificate on the life and nature of Christ and God?
Hm...it's a strange world...
--tom