When The Ninth Gate was first released in 1999, it wasn’t a big commercial success. Critics said the movie “meandered aimlessly” and had a “lackluster ending” that not even Johnny Depp’s star power could save.
At first glance, the critics were correct: The Ninth Gate appears to be about Johnny Depp running around various countries while lighting cigarettes at every opportunity he gets. And after about two hours, the movie ends in a rather anti-climactic way.
But at second glance, these critics completely missed the movie’s point. The Ninth Gate is not a Pirates of the Caribbean-style adventure but a highly symbolic story of initiation where the protagonist’s “meandering” is actually an allegorical ritual, and the “anti-climatic ending” is nothing less than spiritual illumination guided by the Whore of Babylon in the flesh.
However, none of this is spelled out in the movie; it is all meant to be decoded. Indeed, the movie’s underlying meaning can only be understood once the symbols and occult references peppered throughout the film are pieced together, like Corso (Johnny Depp’s character) pieces together pages from a Satanic book.
Maybe that explains why, after being panned by critics, the movie is now considered a cult classic. Here’s a look at the much-overlooked meaning of The Ninth Gate.
Read more: The Much-Overlooked Symbolism in Roman Polanski’s “The Ninth Gate”
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