Her name was Patricia Highsmith. She is the writer I love the most. I have been happy with the nightmares she narrated. And I return to them with passion when everything seems sad, lonely and final. The mature image of that brilliant writer is that of a devastated person, all wrinkles and deep holes in her face, someone who looks tormented and unhappy. But this lonely heart, this pertinent drunk, was also a constant seductress of women, a specialist in sentimental escapes. And write like a goddess. She had no artistic ambitions in her prose, but she invented plots, atmospheres, anguish with an imagination, a suspense, an unusual torment. I imagine that currently that illustrious lady would not need empowerment and other fashionable demands to impose her immense talent, her perverse and hypnotic narrative, the fear, the tension, the anguish, the fascination that she provokes in the reader.
The novel of his that makes me fall in love with and disturbs me the most is The tremor of counterfeiting. But all, or almost all, are exciting. And in several of them Tom Ripley was invented, an absolutely disturbing, amoral, hustler, capable of killing without the slightest remorse when he feels cornered, master of emotional disguise and scam, someone as shady as he is fearsome. He was embodied in the cinema by actors as diverse as Delon (yes, he was beautiful but except in Melville's films he couldn't stand him), a fast-paced and drug-addicted Dennis Hopper, the always convincing Matt Damon and the sinuous and sophisticated John Malkovich.
And Ripley returns in a bold bet by Netflix, that certificate of mediocrity and clonism to popular taste, but which also allows itself the luxury of financing quality products. And you are amazed by the pretensions and aesthetic result of this series. It is filmed in times where only color is valued with an exquisite black and white, capable of reminding you of the most famous photo album. Filming Rome, Naples, Palermo and Venice with heartbreaking beauty. And then, I'll hit you with infinite stairs to show you the protagonist's mental abyss. And I'll hit you with Caravaggio, murderer, genius, master of light, so you understand Ripley's mental complexity.
I look at this series with aesthetic admiration. But I have a problem. I can't stand Ripley or most of her companions. The bill is impressive. And there are things incredibly clumsy about how Ripley solves her crimes. I am very glad that this series was made and its adventurous characteristics. But I wouldn't see it again, it wouldn't be in my film library.
You can follow EL PAÍS Television on x or sign up here to receive our weekly newsletter.
Subscribe to continue reading
Read without limits
_
#Dazzling #aesthetics #Ripley #carries