Film Friday: The Ninth Gate (1999)

Hollywood loves evil. . . cartoon evil. From sulking cannibalistic serial killers to Al Pacino’s devil screaming about being a lawyer, all of Hollywood’s evil characters display uncontrollable sadism and megalomania. They yell and scream and prance around shooting their underlings or kicking puppies so the audience knows they are evil. And every once in a while, a truly sinister one whispers ominously. . . and then prances around shooting his underlings and kicking puppies. The Ninth Gate rejects that. The Ninth Gate is an indictment of Hollywood’s version of evil. It is a warning that we have been so blinded by the glitz of Hollywood evil, that we can no longer recognize the real thing.

** heavy spoiler alert **

The Plot

Directed by Roman Polanski, The Ninth Gate is the story of Dean Corso (played perfectly by Johnny Depp). Corso is an odious little man who acquires rare books for well paying clients. We first meet Corso as he tricks a young couple out of a rare copy of "Don Quixote." Soon Corso is summoned by Boris Balkan (Frank Langella), a collector of books about the devil. Balkan has acquired a copy of the “Nine Gates to the Kingdom of Shadows” by Aristide Torchia. This rare book (only three exist) supposedly will allow the reader to summon the devil. Balkan suspects his version is a forgery and pays Corso to inspect the other two copies. Corso is told to obtain an original, non-forgery by any means possible. Thus begins Corso’s journey.

When Corso begins comparing the books, he discovers that Torchia hid a secret in all three books as a kind of puzzle. Each book contains nine supposedly-identical engravings. But Corso realizes that three of the engravings in each book contain subtle differences and that the engravings with those differences are signed “LCF” (meaning Lucifer).

As Corso examines the books, people around him start dying. He is also chased by a sadistic woman named Liana Telfer who wants Balkan’s copy of the book (Balkan took it from her husband). Telfer belongs to a cult and intends to use the book as part of a Satanic ritual. Corso also meets the Baroness Kessler, who claims to have seen the devil in her youth, and who has since dedicated her life to writing about the devil. Telfer eventually steals the book from Corso, and Balkan kills her to reclaim it. He then uses the book himself to attempt to conjure the devil. But the final engraving is a forgery. Thus, when Balkan sets himself on fire, much to his surprise, he burns. As he burns, Corso shoots him. Corso then retrieves the real engraving, which reveals the location of the ninth gate. As the story ends, we see Corso walking through the ninth gate.

The Message

The Ninth Gate is about real evil, and that evil is Corso. Corso systematically abandons God by engaging in each of the seven deadly sins and ultimately declares allegiance to the devil and voluntarily pass through the ninth gate. But can the audience see this?

To test the audience, Polanski does more than just tell us the story of Dean Corso. Indeed, he attempts to distract us with the over-the-top, pro-forma Hollywood evil of Balkan and Telfer. Polanski knows that we are so accustomed to Hollywood evil and Hollywood formula that we will see these two as “the” evil and we will dismiss Corso’s own evil. Indeed, like Pavlov’s dogs, we’ve come to expect that all evil is larger-than-life and that where there is an evil character there must be an opposing good character. Thus, we are conditioned to see Corso as “the good guy” and we cheer him on, no matter how evil he becomes. And evil he does become.

Throughout the movie, Corso’s evil continues to ratchet up notch after notch and Polanski turns each of these notches into a test for the audience. In each instance, as Corso undertakes his relentless, remorseless journey of evil, we are offered a justification for his conduct. But we are also shown why that justification is not valid. Can we recognize the truth? For example, Corso drinks and smokes to excess. Sure, it’s gluttony, but we all do it. He pushes away two beggars, but they didn’t seem very likeable. He steals from a dead man, but we’re told “he’s dead, why worry about him.” When Corso defrauds the couple of the "Don Quixote," we don’t mind because they are shown to be greedy people hoping to profit off their father’s stroke. Yet, we’re also shown that the father suffers when he see Corso’s actions but is powerless to stop him. Thus, our excuse that only bad people will suffer from his conduct is shown to be false.

Corso accepts Balkan’s assignment to do “whatever it takes,” which we know to be wrong, but we understand his motivation because Balkan offers him a tremendous amount of money. Indeed, our greed blinds us to the truth. When his best friend is killed because of this assignment, we nevertheless want him to continue -- after all, he’s dead, why worry about him. Corso sleeps with Liana Telfer under false pretenses, but we don’t mind because she’s evil and she was trying to use him. Later on, he even kills Telfer’s henchman, but it’s all in self-defense, right? Actually no. Corso kills the henchman after he knocks him unconscious. Corso could have simply escaped, but he was angry so he chose to kill the man. Anger, by the way, was once considered the worst of all sins.

And let’s not forget that Corso also kills a second time. He kills Balkan after Balkan sets himself on fire. But that was a mercy killing, right? He didn’t want Balkan to suffer in the fire, right? Actually, look again. Corso watches Balkan burn with more than a hint of satisfaction on his face. It is only near the end, as Balkan is about to die from his burns that Corso shoots him, to satisfy his own vengeance.

Further, consider the young woman with no name. She is the devil. How do we know this? We are never told who she is, but we are given clues -- like the rest of the film, her identity is a puzzle to be solved. Of all the characters, she is the only one with supernatural powers (she floats on air in one scene and changes her form in an airport in another). Also, her’s is the face of the woman riding the beast in the final engraving, and when she and Corso finally have sex, her eyes glow as the flames build behind them, making her physically appear as the devil might.

As the devil, Hollywood tells us she would be interested in Balkan or Telfer, but she’s not. She wants Corso because unlike the fake evil of Balkan or Telfer, Corso offers real evil. Indeed, interestingly, despite obsessing over the devil their entire lives, neither Balkan or Telfer ever realize that she is the devil -- even though she is standing right before their eyes. She is simply not what they expect, she’s not grandiose. Continuing this theme, Balkan even has a painting of the location of the ninth gate in his library at the beginning of the film, but never grasps its meaning. Polanski’s point in this, is that evil stands before us all the time, but we don’t see it because we are looking for something too grandiose.

With regard to Corso, the young woman renders her verdict when Corso kills the henchmen. She watches the murder with glee and then says with admiration, “I didn’t know you had it in you.” He has passed the test.

Finally, Polanski gives us huge hints from Corso’s own mouth. When he first deals with Balkan, Corso says to Balkan “my god” and refers to him on the phone as “his master’s voice.” While these could be viewed as nothing more than expressions or clever turns-of-phrase, they are instead meant to alert the reader that Corso worships the man who pays him. He has no other allegiance. When Corso discovers the puzzle within the three books, he says, “I’ll be damned,” as indeed he will. And when he finally decides he no longer cares about Balkan’s money, but instead wants to solve the puzzle and conjure the devil himself, he says to the young woman, “my god” -- effectively declaring a new allegiance to the devil. These are clues into the nature of Corso’s soul.

Each of these clues combine to show us that Corso is the true evil in this movie. He is the one the devil considers most compelling. That we lose sight of Corso’s evil because it is not over-the-top like Balkan is Polanski’s point. We the viewers cheer Corso along in his journey. We fail to see the evil in his acts, we justify what evil we do see, and we happily share his fate. That is the message of this film. It is no coincidence that the only two people to see the devil for who he/she really is are Corso and us.

Irony Gone Wild: The Critics

Let me finish with a bit of irony regarding film critics. As you know, film critics like to think of themselves as a nuanced and insightful group. They routinely claim to see a hundred shades of meaning in every hamburger and they love to complain that Hollywood never produces intelligent films. So what did they say about the very thoughtful and nuanced The Ninth Gate?

According to Roger Ebert, Johnny Depp played Corso “too odiously” to be the hero. Hmmm, sounds like someone didn’t understand that Corso’s surrender to evil was the point of the movie. The NYT said the movie wasn’t sufficiently scary. Of course, I hear that’s a common complaint about Socrates as well. Entertainment Weekly didn’t think the ending was spectacular enough. . . maybe Depp should have kicked a puppy?

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Film Friday: Unknown (2011)

I like Taken a good deal and Unknown feels similar to Taken in many ways. It has some interesting facets too, some good, some bad. On the good side, Unknown handles the “stolen identity” concept better than any other film that comes to mind, and Liam Neeson is excellent as always. On the downside, the film ultimately feels flat and its politics are to blame.

** spoiler alert **

The Plot

As the film open, Dr. Martin Harris (Liam Neeson) arrives in Berlin to participate in a biotechnology conference. But he mistakenly leaves his briefcase at the airport, and on his way back to the airport to pick it up, his taxi accidentally plunges into a river. He’s saved by his taxi driver (Diane Kruger). When he wakes up in the hospital, he learns another man has taken his place. This man has identification cards in his name, family photos showing him with Neeson’s wife, and everyone accepts him as Dr. Martin Harris. Even Neeson’s own wife Liz (January Jones, who is awful here) seems to treat this man as the real Martin Harris. Is Neeson insane or is something else going on here? And why are people trying to kill him?

The Stolen Identity Issue

Generally, stolen identity thrillers face an uphill battle. While it’s certainly believable one person would impersonate another, it’s just not believable that they could fool the people close to the person being impersonated. Indeed, how could your family and friends not know the difference? What about co-workers? Even if you’ve only dealt with people over the phone, it still seems unlikely that an imposter could fake the voice, the speech patterns, and the level of knowledge needed to pull that off. Also, once you flash your ID to the cops, the imposter’s web starts to unravel.

So when I hear the words “stolen identity,” I cringe because I know I’ll be subjected to unbelievable setups, inexplicable behaviors, and a host of moments where characters need to act stupidly to make the concept work. This is problematic at best because any scheme that relies on everyone on the planet getting movie-stupid is not a great premise for a film.

But that wasn’t the case here. In fact, I was really impressed. I hate to give too much away and there are several twists, so I will proceed cautiously. The issue starts with the question of whether or not Neeson might actually be insane. Indeed for some period of time, you do genuinely wonder if the other guy isn’t the real Dr. Martin Harris and Neeson isn’t just suffering from head trauma. Soon, all the pieces start being explained bit by bit, and in the process a political intrigue is revealed.

Where this film truly deserves recognition is in the execution of that explanation. For one thing, the entire explanation makes sense. Indeed, every last aspect of it is perfectly logical once you understand what happened. Moreover, it is highly unexpected. This is not a solution you’ll see coming, but at the same time, it’s not so far beyond the bounds of common sense or so impractical that you can’t believe it. Further, it’s woven tightly into the political intrigue, meaning it never feels like a gimmick added to the film just to liven it up.

But most importantly, it’s executed perfectly in that the characters never act stupidly to make this work. The authorities don’t inexplicably ignore Neeson’s claims or become blind to obvious clues or throw up their hands in plot-driven helplessness. And all the pitfalls identified above are overcome. For example, it’s Thanksgiving, thus there’s no way to check with the American consulate to look for passport photos. Neeson can’t produce an ID because his wallet was in his briefcase. His wife’s behavior, the presence of his friend (Frank Langella) in Europe, and other similar issues are all reasonably explained. And Neeson isn’t a fool. That makes this a solid, enjoyable story.

Bland Liberalism Masquerading As Depth

All that said, however, there is a problem with this film. Specifically, the film lacks depth, both in the political intrigue and in the characters Neeson meets.

Drama comes from hard decisions, but there are no hard decisions here because the political intrigue is so one-sided. The film takes place in Berlin and it involves a conference where an Arab prince will giving the world for free an environmentalist-fantasy grain which would feed the world’s poor without the usual beefs environmentalists have with farming. Essentially, the greatest guy on earth is about to offer utopia. Yawn. This film would have been much stronger if there was some doubt as to who the good guys and bad guys really are. Yet, as Neeson discovers what’s going on, his choice becomes patently obvious. There’s some irony in what he’s doing, which I won’t go into, but there’s never a single moment where he needs to ask himself if he’s doing the right thing. That robs the film of a ton of drama which would have made the film so much stronger.

Moreover, outside of Neeson, the characters are flat. The bad guys belong to some generic conspiracy that kills people on behalf of rich companies. Yawn. There is never a sense of why they are actually doing this other than bland profit. As we’ve said many times, it’s hard to care about a villain who doesn’t even care about his own schemes.

And the good guys are even more pointless. By and large, they are nothing more than idealized liberal tropes. For example, there is an illegal alien from Africa who tells Neeson where he can find Diane Kruger, an illegal alien from Russia who becomes Neeson’s sidekick. This character adds nothing else to the plot, yet we’re supposed to care about him because the film tells us that Germans mistreat African immigrants and force them to live in slums (a total falsehood). And when he gets killed we’re supposed to care that his poor family in Africa will never know what happened to him or why the money he sends each month suddenly stops. Boo frick’n hoo. This has nothing to do with the story. And the fact the writer hopes to use this to humanize the story is a prime example that the writer had no idea how to connect the characters to the plot or the plot to the audience. This is what happens when you use an indifferent, generic villain.

Similarly, we are introduced to an ex-Stasi officer. He really does nothing to further the plot except explain the nature of the political conspiracy to the audience -- which actually detracts from the film, as it would have been better to have Neeson learn it himself. But again we’re supposed to care about him and again the reason we’re supposed to care is his liberal beliefs. He is presented as a kindly old former military officer who laments that, “We Germans are good at forgetting things. We forgot we were Nazis and then we forgot we were communists.” Oh gee, what a wonderful guy. Only, it’s crap.

For one thing, the Germans have spent the past 60+ years trying to atone for being Nazis. They’ve made themselves pacifists, built museums to war crimes, outlawed denial of Nazi crimes, made it illegal to sell Nazi paraphernalia, and given money all over the world to try to make good. No one in Germany has forgotten they were Nazis. But they did forget they were communists, and this film is a great example of that. It is a total whitewash to present the Stasi as just another military institution. They were in fact one of the more brutal organizations in history, and that gets whitewashed here, especially when this Stasi character describes how peacefully he questioned “suspects” without ever mentioning the torture, the killing and the spying.

But the bigger issue, again, is that he doesn’t fit into the story. He’s a plot convenience. The information he provides could have been found by Neeson in a newspaper. Yet, the writer mistakenly thinks he can humanize the story by giving us another liberal lament through this character. This is poor writing. It’s like the writer spent all his energy solving the stolen-identity puzzle and he didn’t have any energy left to put into the conspiracy and the supporting characters, so he just grabbed some liberal tropes out of the liberal-idiocy bag and jammed them into the story.

This is a good film, but it’s flawed, and that’s rather sad. Indeed, for a film that takes the horrid concept of a stolen identity and handles it exceedingly well -- a rare accomplishment -- the rest of this film doesn’t do it justice.

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Film Friday: The Box (2009)

When it comes to films, I’m all for creativity. Interesting camera angles, unique visual tricks, and neat twists of chronology all have the potential to truly enhance a film and make it stand out. But there’s a catch. The creativity needs to serve a purpose, otherwise it’s just a gimmick, and gimmicks get annoying fast. One film that suffers from misuse of such gimmicks is The Box, a 2009 science fiction story based on Richard Matheson’s short story “Button, Button.”

** spoiler alert **

Matheson, by the way, is one of science fiction’s greats. His most famous works include “I Am Legend” and “The Incredible Shrinking Man,” and many of his works have ended up as films or Twilight Zone episodes. Even “Button, Button” was made into a Twilight Zone (1985 version) before it was made into The Box.

The Box is the story of a young couple (Cameron Diaz and James Marsden, who have no chemistry) who receive a box from a mysterious man, who offers them one million dollars if they push the button on top of the box. The catch? Someone they don’t know will die when they push the button. In and of itself, this makes a fairly interesting premise for a psychological character study. Would you push the button? Does it matter that you do or don’t know the people? What happens if you and your spouse disagree? What happens if you push the button and then change your mind?

Yet pushing the button is only the beginning of the plot. Without giving too much away, it soon turns out that the box delivering man, Arlington Steward (Frank Langella), works for some very powerful people, and they have the power to control the minds of people all around the unhappy couple. This turns the film into a mystery the characters try to solve who these people are, how they are controlling people, and why they are doing it. All told, this should make the plot very interesting and well worth seeing. But there are major problems with this film that kept me from enjoying it, and those problems were entirely avoidable.

First, director Richard Kelly sets the film in 1976. So what's wrong with 1976? Well, for starters, this is not the kind of film that benefits from being a period piece, unless there's a good reason for it, e.g. you're spanning time. Here the reason will not be obvious to most people and is not strong enough to justify making this a period piece (he wants the film to coincide with a Mars probe). That makes this feel like a gimmick, and it becomes annoying as you find yourself waiting to find out why the film is set in 1976. . . only to discover there's no real reason. Further, 1976 is not far enough back to be a sufficiently interesting period. Consequently, you end up feeling that the director chose 1976 just so he could play music from that period and have several scenes where the television announces some “new” sitcom that eventually would become a classic -- a total cliché for modern period pieces.

Secondly, even though this film could have taken place anywhere in the world, Kelly chose Richmond as a setting. Normally, this wouldn’t be a big deal, except that Kelly uses the setting as a reason to have Cameron Diaz fake a “Virginia” accent, something she does very, very poorly. Again, there is no reason to have done this and it comes across as yet another gimmick.

Third, Kelly tries to build drama by stretching out his scenes. This is a trick that various great directors have mastered -- Quentin Tarantino comes to mind. But whereas Tarantino fills his scenes with compelling dialog and a steadily building level of tension, Kelly just stretches each scene. This causes the film to feel slow and meandering, even though the nature of the plot should make it fast-paced. It also comes across like a heavy-handed, film-school gimmick.

Kelly also repeatedly demonstrates a lack of faith in his audience. For example, he keeps beating you over the head with the idea that he's withholding key elements from the audience and that this is the kind of film that won’t explain everything. But at the same time, he tells you the information he is supposedly withholding if you just pay attention to what the radio and the background characters tell you. And in case you miss it the first time, they repeat themselves a dozen times. And just in case you still missed it, he repeatedly interjects scenes where two characters suddenly begin explaining to each other what is about to happen (or what just happened) and what it means.

Yet, at the same time, Kelly is too coy and waits too long to get into the plot details. Thus, you’re confronted with scenes like the opening scene, where a student humiliates Diaz seemingly for no reason. You will understand much later what possessed the student to act this way (though Diaz’s reaction makes no sense), but until that happens you’re left with a scene that just strains credibility and drags the movie down.

Continuing the lack of faith issue, Kelly doesn't trust that his audience will accept his characters' choices, so he stacks the deck. Indeed, rather than letting the young couple decide on their own whether or not to push the button, the first several minutes of the film are a set up where everything the couple has relied upon financially is slowly taken away from them. Thus, the film itself justifies their decision to push the button and thereby resolves the moral issue that theoretically sits at the center of this movie, i.e. the film excuses their behavior. Kelly then repeats this trick several times throughout the film to make the paths the couple should choose obvious in each instance. It would have been much better not to manipulate the circumstances, but to let the characters deal with their own thoughts and emotions honestly.

All in all, Kelly had in his grasp a fantastic story with incredible potential. But he kept mucking it up with pointless gimmicks that did nothing but distract from the film, and he weakened the underlying dilemmas by manipulating the circumstances to make the moral decisions much easier for his characters. If he hadn’t done these things, I would be screaming that everyone should see this film. As it is, all I can really say is that it was an interesting film that I'm glad I saw, but I don’t want to see it again, and I can’t help but think that I would have been better off just reading the short story.

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