The Ninth Configuration, a film by William Peter Blatty, celebrated author of The Exorcist is a metaphysical yet realistic film. Set towards the latter years of Vietnam in a castle used to treat insane soldiers ,Colonel Kane, the newly appointed psychiatrist, is assigned the task of curing the mentally plagued- a mean feat when there aren't only soldiers but a psychotic astronaut, Cutshaw, to cure. What sets this film apart from the rest is that it is a smouldering couldron of ideas and poignant imagery: in Kane's dreams he deliberates how there must be a God when he is stood on the moon and a crucifix looms before him, one of the insane is performing Shakespeare's works with dogs, another fulfils his dream by painting the roof of the castle, Cistine Chapel style. However, for all its rampaging imagery, The Ninth Configuration, at its heart, is deep. Dissimilar to most films that hold faith in a dark light the film perhaps shows the necessity of faith in a brutal world. For how, as Kane muses, can life have spontaneously spawned from the primordial seas? There must be more. Life arsing from chance seems improbable, bordering on the impossible. Or is faith a cop out? Should we embrace the arbitrary? After all, modern physics is governed by quantum mechanics, pure probability. Einstein was wrong: God, it seems plays dice with the universe. But as The Ninth Configuration perhaps provokes, it is important to note it is God who throws the dice.
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