At the risk of repeating myself, this is a film that should be much higher in
my list. I don't know what I was thinking when I put it in 44th place. I'll
put things right later this year. I shan't do another countdown, but I'll put
a top 100 list online that I'll constantly update.
This is Johnny Depp's best film. It's Roman Polanski's best film. It's a
genuine film noir, a genre that is rare nowadays. It follows the first rule of
film noir, that the protagonist should be present in every scene. Usually he's
a detective, but even if he isn't the viewer follows him and sees everything
that happens through his eyes. If there's a mystery, we find the answers at
the same time as the protagonist.
Since the last time I watched the film (in 2019) I've read the book on which
the film is based, "The Club Dumas" by Arturo Perez-Reverte. I thought it
would help me understand some of the questions left unanswered in the film. I
was wrong. The book tells a very complex story with different plots running
side by side. The film's main plot, the investigation of "The Nine Gates of
the Kingdom of Shadows", is a secondary sub-plot in the book itself. Roman
Polanski's screenplay simplifies the story, making the film tighter and more
enthralling.
I was confused by some of the characters being different in the book. In the
film Boris Balkan is the bad guy, whereas he's not at all bad in the book. The
book contains a character called Varo Borja, missing in the film, but the
film's Boris Balkan does a lot of the things that Borja does in the book.
The only thing that the book clearly explains is the identity of the
green-eyed woman who assists Dean Corso, the book detective. She's a fallen
angel who followed Lucifer when he was cast out of Heaven, but now that she's
walking the Earth she's become a free agent, serving neither God nor the
Devil. That isn't stated or even hinted at in the film, but after being told
her role everything she does in the film makes sense.
The film is all about books. Johnny Depp plays Dean Corso, a dishonest,
unscrupulous book dealer. In the opening scenes he's shown to be a very
unpleasant person. He'll do anything for money. In film noir it's common for
the detective to be flawed, but Dean Corso is bad, through and
through. It's only due to the masterful directing by Roman Polanski and the
brilliant acting by Johnny Depp that we're able to sympathise with him on his
journeys.
Boris Balkan has acquired a book called "The Nine Gates of the Kingdom of
Shadows", a book written in 1666 that is supposedly able to summon the Devil
in physical form. He thinks the book might be a fake, so he hires Corso to
compare it with the only other copies known to exist, one in Portugal and the
other in France. As he travels across Europe he's constantly being stalked by
people willing to kill him to steal his copy of the book. The only person at
his side is the mysterious green-eyed girl. Corso assumes that she works for
Balkan, but she's actually doing everything for Corso's sake.
The film's femme fatale is Liana Telfer, played by Lena Olin. She's beautiful,
she's deadly, and she loves books. Everyone in the film is obsessed with old
books.
Liana seduces Dean, but it's not long before she's trying to kill him.
In my past reviews I've written more about the spiritual background of the
film. If you're interested,
please read this review.
Success Rate: - 0.5
 |
Order from Amazon.com |
| Order from Amazon.co.uk | |
| Order from Amazon.de |
No comments:
Post a Comment
Tick the box "Notify me" to receive notification of replies.