Tag Archives: Europe

Ripley (2024). Excellent.

The cinematic travails of Tom Ripley have given us the quite barking The American Friend (1977), The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), and the little-seen Ripley’s Game (2002) – a multifarious holy trilogy of sorts linked by the amoral antihero. I have not seen Purple Noon (1960), nor the Barry Pepper number. And what the fuck happened to that actor? He was on the cusp but now operating in the AWOL stakes.

And this TV first, it’s exceptional, a throwback continental thriller with vistas galore. Ripley epitomises the self-effacing weasel; you need to watch out for these creeps for they lurk in the shadows.

It’s a 5/5 from me and I couldn’t find a flaw in it.

And Patricia Highsmith used to smuggle snails through airport customs ….

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Brussels by Night (1983).

I am most familiar with Brussels by night – a vignette from real life that was the glorious Eurotrip of 2010. Belgium was my Waterloo (1815), hell but like a dreamland in retrospect. I’ll never go back. No point.

This was most interesting as a documentation of a time and place as well as for its drama and peculiar narrative style

The protagonist has quite the rugged and haggard face, unusual for a film, aye. He isn’t likeable but you still keep engaged.

The seemingly random progression of scenes and their emphasis on the mundane – everyday tasks which accompany our hissy fits – do a proper job of drawing you in to this wholly unpredictable and almost peak Godardian semi-banger.

It reminded me of Last Tango in Paris (1972) a bit, but without the psychobabble and the creepiness.

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