The Ninth Gate

[MrMonk]

Okay, movie mavens ....

I watched The Ninth Gate (with Johnny Depp) on Sunday.
Can somebody 'splain a few things to me:

1) WTF was that ending?

2) Who or what was "The Girl"? (I vote for "fallen angel".)

3) Did "The Girl" really fly during the fights at the Seine and the chateaux or was that a slow-motion view of her jumping? If she was flying, why tip off the audience so soon in the movie? (I "saw" her slide down the railing at the Seine, but my co-viewer insists that she was above the stairs the entire time.)

4) Did the angel in the "death from above" engraving have the same face as the old book restorers?

5) Did the harlot in the ninth etching have the face of "The Girl"?

6) If so (in both 3 and 4), were any other film characters portrayed in the engravings?

7) Wasn't this story made into an earlier movie, with an older Corso (Depp's character)?

8) Has anyone here read "The Dumas Club" (the book on which the movie was based)? Is it better, perhaps, than the movie?

The film kept my attention for 2-1/2 hours,but, IMO, if it was meant to be a puzzle for the viewers, it dropped its clues too quickly for them to be grasped.

[displacedtexan]

1. If I remember...

The girl was the whore of Babylon.
In the end, Johnny Depp got to be Lucifer's chosen one (with whatever honors and perks that may entail).

That's all I remember about it.

[CanuckAmok]

2. Yes, she "flew"...

I think, by that point in the script, it wasn't much of a secret that she was 'otherworldly'. The mystery wasn't her supernatural origin, but which 'side' she was on.

I'm still toying with the ending, but someone here on DU suggested that she was taking Depp to hell. Somone observed that, throughout the film, he passes through eight symbolic or practical gates, and the ninth one is the glowing castle door at the end of the film.

Polanski is one of those people I'd like to have a conversation with...just to get some insight into the way his mind works.

[Enraged_Ape]

3. It's been years since I saw it (major spoiler)

But I kind of got the impression that the woman was Satan him/herself--the Master of Evil, the Lochnar if you will (for you Heavy Metal fans) or the Sum of All Evil in the Universe. Depp chose to go with her in the end, to become her consort, because she represented what he had been looking for all along.

[cosmicaug]

4. The movie leaves fully one half of the plot out.

Rumpole wrote

1) WTF was that ending?

To tell you the truth, I don't remember it at all but WTF sounds about right. To tell you the lie, it was an allegory involving the Hampster Dance.


Rumpole wrote

2) Who or what was "The Girl"? (I vote for "fallen angel".)

Sounds reasonable to me.


Rumpole wrote

3) Did "The Girl" really fly during the fights at the Seine and the chateaux or was that a slow-motion view of her jumping? If she was flying, why tip off the audience so soon in the movie? (I "saw" her slide down the railing at the Seine, but my co-viewer insists that she was above the stairs the entire time.)

In my opinion, yes (to plant in the viewer the idea that there was something supernatural or, at the very least, odd about her). In my opinion, this was intentionally made vague by the director (precisely not to unambiguously tip-off the audience --I think you're supposed to be asking yourself whether she really did fly or, perhaps, if you didn't quite see it, like your friend, just get the feeling there's something weird going on).

Rumpole wrote

4) Did the angel in the "death from above" engraving have the same face as the old book restorers?

I have no idea. It's been a long time (and my memory isn't always what one might call great, as it is).

Rumpole wrote

5) Did the harlot in the ninth etching have the face of "The Girl"?

Probably, the harlot being Biblical imagery from the Book of Revelations and all that.

Rumpole wrote

7) Wasn't this story made into an earlier movie, with an older Corso (Depp's character)?

I have no idea. I wouldn't hink so. Do you remember a title?


Rumpole wrote

8) Has anyone here read "The Dumas Club" (the book on which the movie was based)? Is it better, perhaps, than the movie?

The movie leaves fully one half of the plot out (there are these two, separate twisted plots woven together in the book --one having to do with a manuscript by Dumas, thus the title of the book). Not that I blame the movie script writer for removing one of the plots since it would be very difficult to make a movie taking in both plots (and it would probably be almost impossible make anything ressembling a good movie).
I found the book to be a very good read (though I read it in the original Spanish version). Perhaps I just like the writing by the author, Arturo Pérez Reverte, as I previously read La piel del Tambor and also liked it.

The movie Uncovered is also interesting as you get to briefly see Kate Beckinsale's breasts (assuming they're not third party stunt breasts). No, seriously, I kind of liked that movie too. It also makes clear that there's a certain style of plotting and setting that the author likes to use in his writting.

[MrMonk]

5. Thank you (and the others) for the information

I'm toying with the idea that The Girl really was a fallen angel (or The Whore of Babylon) and that she was helping Corso toward his own damnation. (The others were already damned since they already sought the book's power.) At the end, he realized what was happening and decided not to fight his destiny (rather like Johnny in Angel Heart).
That's my interpretation, until I see it again.

Regarding the idea of an earlier movie: after a little research, I realized that the movie I seem to recall must have been made long before the first publication of the book.