Romantic Aura

The first half of the film effortlessly creates a romantic atmosphere through close-ups of the actors, the charming scenery of the Italian seaside, old villas, and a somewhat vintage look. It makes you feel as if you are right there, experiencing the humid air by the sea and gazing into the eyes of the charming protagonists, wrapped in a naturally soothing romance. It’s been a long time since I felt this way while watching a movie. Not all directors and actors can be so restrained, appropriate, and immersive when portraying romance.

Beauty

Apart from the movie, another takeaway for me is that my understanding of beauty has become gradually clearer. Beauty is not an objective phenomenon; it is a subjective feeling, merely a sensation. Our bodies can perceive beauty, but our brains always need to abstract some concepts to try to capture the essence of beauty and understand its patterns through the process of creating beauty.

We perceive beauty through various stimuli and sensations, such as accelerated heartbeat, increased adrenaline, dopamine secretion, ecstasy, subconsciously holding our breath, tears, and the desire to take photos. There are so many sources and ways to experience beauty. Why do we all call it beauty? Is there something common among them? One way to answer this question is to see if we can create beauty, and creating and discovering beauty is the same process. It is about creating opportunities and observing the complete process from cause to effect. We try various paths to beauty through painting, architecture, sculpture, music, and industrial design. From some good examples like this movie, Van Gogh and Picasso’s paintings, and Apple’s product design, I can see some conceptual elements of beauty: full of details, clear priorities, good quality, and harmony.

Although following these principles can produce beautiful products that people want to buy and sell at a good price, these abstract concepts do not directly correspond to our body’s various sensations. Our bodies cannot directly perceive “harmony.” So, what exactly is beauty? Is it meaningful to pursue a deeper understanding of this concept? I believe in and enjoy infinite details and diversity, but I also believe there are some deeper essences and foundations, which is consciousness. I think consciousness is the electrical activity of the brain, and other parts of the body support the brain. Subjective feelings are feedback signals from various organs of the body. Beauty is those positive signals that better support brain activity, body survival, and reproduction. Things that generate these signals are beautiful, but the concept of beauty is further expanded by interpersonal and social culture, perhaps extending to things that promote groups and beliefs. The beauty principles mentioned earlier are traceable in this chain: details in the jungle are key to life and death, clear priorities are the brain’s main task, good quality items are more reliable hunting tools, and harmony is order, habit, and efficiency. Beauty is first and foremost good and positive, but when we consider empathy and comfort for sad emotions as good, then tragic beauty is established. “Tragic” and “beauty” can be different aspects of the same specific event, independent yet coincidentally occurring together.

However, beauty is not the most core thing. In my opinion, many people, including the protagonists of this movie, place the feeling of being loved and charm, which is a sense of beauty, as the top priority, living in a castle in the air, gradually falling into extremes and abyss. Overall, beauty is not an ethereal thing; it is directly rooted in our survival foundation. Our perception and pursuit of beauty follow the way of life. Although beauty is not the most core thing, existence and development are, beauty is the catalyst of life, the salt of life.

Love

Love is the theme of this movie. Love can take many forms and cover a wide range, but there is a feeling often mistaken for or disguised as love that I think needs to be distinguished, which is possessiveness. I even believe that simply liking a person or thing is not love; it is a derivative emotion of love. Many people have said, and I partly agree, that love is more of a verb. Returning to my previous description of consciousness, beauty is those positive signals, and love is the source of those signals. These behaviors generate neural stimuli that are the feeling of love and are also beautiful. When we find something beneficial to us, we feel fond of it and want to get more love. The key point is the initial act of love, not the desire to get more. Fondness and desire are by-products, very meaningful, forming a positive feedback loop, but pursuing these so-called love, actually desires, is like chasing a mirage, putting the cart before the horse. Love is the act of treating oneself or others well. The subject of love is the person who performs the act, and the object of love is the person being treated well. Therefore, one can love oneself and then have self-respect; one can also love others, and others will receive love. The other person may or may not love back, but once there is love, the overall sense of happiness always increases.

Sometimes it is hard to distinguish between inferiority and narcissism. I even think they are the same thing, only seeing oneself, without self-love, living on others’ love, and constantly demanding. Tom in the movie shows obvious inferiority, repeatedly replaying in his mind Dickie and the female lead saying “I like him,” and losing his mind when Dickie calls him boring. In fact, Dickie is not necessarily an extremely boring person, and it could be laughed off without taking it seriously. Narcissistic people care most about others’ evaluations. Dickie is another extreme manifestation of the same narcissistic personality, being cynical, flirtatious, rebellious, and prodigal. Perhaps it is due to being spoiled from a young age and not receiving a bit of love from a busy, stern father, leading to a loss of deep life meaning and motivation, not establishing self-love and independence, living a glamorous but worthless, even harmful life to society, relying on family money.

In my view, love is an action, and action is the main content of life. Seeing, caring for, treating oneself and those around kindly, and being grateful, there is no need to fall into the abyss.

“The Talented Mr. Ripley” is a great movie, with plot and details worth pondering, the actors’ performances are delightful, and it serves as a good reminder.