Five stars for Netflix's Ripley

Because I loved Netflix's eight-part series Ripley for a lot of reasons, I was compelled to read the book to which it was based, The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith. This was a novel experience for me to  want to read after watching a movie based on a book. Part of it perhaps was because I want to find out more about the paintings featured in the film only for me to uncover that none of them was referenced in the book.    

Director and writer Steven Zaillan did deliver a visually stunning film from a book with a valuable addition of allusions to the life of Italian Renaissance painter Caravaggio whose works led the way to modern chiaroscuro, a technique that heavily uses light and dark to which was later referred as tenebrism from the Italian word tenebroso which means dark, gloomy, mysterious. 

The black-and-white wide shots and the micro shots are all necessary ingredients to the film's delectable dish. As homage to the book, the film had been true to the book's storytelling. My favorites are the visuals on the character's laborious ascent and descent typical of Italian steps going up to a villa, and the conversation about refrigerator as analogy to being stationary in life to which the film scored more to me.

The allusions to Caravaggio in the film are not limited to his paintings of light and dark. It also directed us to visit the life of Caravaggio who was said to live both a virtuosic and violent life. He was sentenced to death for killing Ranuccio Tommasoni in a brawl which made him flee to Naples and then later on secured a papal pardon for his sentence. He died under mysterious circumstances.

Actor Andrew Scott reminded me of the finest acting of veteran actor Ralph Fiennes. Scott is cut out for the role of Tom Ripley. In the book, there was an attempt to copy how Dickie Greenleaf looks like but in the movie, there was minimal and the part that used the light and dark to hide the features of Tom Ripley from the police inspector is indeed a directorial genius.  

Of course, I have to admit that the book has some delightful details in the ending that were necessarily cut short by the film. Well, it pays to read the book for these crumbs though I loved the film as is. 

And must I wait? I heard, there will be Ripley 2. 

Sources:

Caravaggio: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caravaggio

David & Goliath, https://www.neh.gov/article/caravaggio-was-other-michelangelo-renaissance

Ripley Poster, from Rotten Tomato