The Ninth Gate (Roman Polanski, 1999)

 I have many friends who say that this is, by far, the worst Polanski film ever. They say that it is a ridiculous movie, trying to be cult and yet again it is not, trying to be a horror movie, then again it's far too cheesy for that and generally, they are saying, this film is a fucking awful movie. I, on the other hand, believe that it's the most mistreated Polanski film and one of his best. The movie has a truly impeccable atmosphere and a truly engaging mystery and suspense. Yes it is horror and yet again it is not only that, yes it is thriller but not a straight one, yes it's a neo-noir film but made with the alphabet of a horror filmmaker. And that combination, that genre plurality makes the movie a really exciting journey to the depths of cinema art. I would even say that the campy, self-satirizing, cheesy elements that it has give the film a certain flavor, where you don't know if you want to fall for that story or you prefer to laugh loudly.

Polanski is a creator that takes his job always extremely seriously and you can see that the humor that derives from the film, is not some unintentional laugh because the film is a crap, but is more a realization that cinema, many times, is a fucking farce. And the better the farce is been build and made, the bigger the fucking laugh afterwards. Because The Ninth Gate is a movie that has smells, that has a specific aroma that you cannot deny. The people who hate the movie, cannot leave themselves in piece to follow the story, no matter how absurd it is, and they stick, obsessively, to the realism of the project... Well, I say one thing. Fuck realism! This is cinema, it has nothing to do with realism and nothing to do with day-to-day stories. If you want something like that go and see a documentary for Christ's sake. In the The Ninth Gate surrealism and dark things happen. Dark things concerning Satan. If you cannot bargain with those elements you better stop watching movies. Movies are a fantasy, an imaginative trip, that's why we love them. Polanski creates a whole menacing and cryptic universe in that movie, you must be a fucking fool, not to see and feel that. There is that continuous sense that someone is following you while you are watching the movie, that dark and sinister things are happening behind your back... This is pure cinema, this is art at its greatest form. When you are attached to the film so much as to take you deep into a trance, then the movie is, most certainly, successful. There is only one thing that I want to say about the movie, it made me lose my patience and quietness. And that I consider it a simple triumph.