Abbas Kiarostami’s ‘Certified Copy’ Tantalizes, Delights

Submitted by mattmovieman on March 18, 2011 - 9:33am

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Rating: 5.0/5.0

CHICAGO – Nothing transfixes me quite like transcendent acting and writing when viewed under a cinematic lens. My favorite films of early 2011 have been Tommy Lee Jones’s stunning adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s play, “The Sunset Limited,” and Abbas Kiarostami’s beguiling new masterwork, “Certified Copy.” Both films derive their dramatic power from the differing philosophies of two articulate characters who may or may not be what they seem.

Neither picture can truly be experienced when viewed casually. They demand an audience’s full attention, engagement and participation. If you don’t leave these films with the overpowering need to discuss and dissect their intricacies, then you obviously zoned out long before the end credits. And yet, neither of these films are rendered inaccessible to the mainstream because of their inherent intellectualism. They are compulsively watchable, effortlessly entertaining, deeply provocative and guaranteed to haunt you for days.

The celebrated Iranian filmmaker Kiarostami is certainly among the most playful of auteurs. He’s obsessed with exploring the precarious line separating reality from fiction, as he did in his extraordinary 1990 landmark, “Close-Up.” That film told the true-life tale of Hossain Sabzian, a devoted movie lover who passed himself off as the director Mohsen Makhmalbaf. Kiarostami added multiple levels of intrigue by allowing the real people involved in the story (including Sabzian) to play themselves. And since their opinions about what actually happened tended to differ, their scenes contain a dizzying array of conflicting nuances. By blending the techniques of documentary and narrative filmmaking, Kiarostami seems to be demonstrating that no film can be truly objective since it ultimately represents the perspective of the artist. Since every perspective represents a different reality, who is to say what is real?

Juliette Binoche stars in Abbas Kiarostami’s Certified Copy.
Photo credit: IFC Films

Since “Copy” is the first project Kiarostami has made outside of Iran, some moviegoers may mistakenly enter the theater expecting a marked departure from his consistently audacious work. The film has been slyly marketed as a straightforward romance reminiscent of Richard Linklater’s “Before Sunrise.” The trailers may lead one to believe that the plot follows two strangers as they slowly fall in love while strolling along the exotic yet strangely evocative streets of a small Tuscan village. Such a succinct summation would be completely correct and woefully wrong. As in every Kiarostami film, there’s far more going on here than initially meets the eye. Viewers who suddenly feel lost around the film’s forty minute mark must rest assured that they haven’t missed a thing. It’s all a part of the director’s plan. Readers who have not yet seen the film are advised to stop now and return for further discussion afterward.

It’s easy to imagine the film becoming a coldly clever essay without the emotional anchor provided by Juliette Binoche, an actress of such luminous beauty and astonishing range that she warrants comparison to the greatest of screen legends, particularly Ingrid Bergman. She deservedly won the Best Actress award at Cannes for her portrayal of Elle, the French owner of an art gallery in Arezzo, who attends a lecture delivered by English author James Miller (played by opera star William Shimell in his film debut). Elle’s precocious son (Adrian Moore) immediately senses an attraction between his mother and the author, but she denies such accusations like a blushing yet perturbed adolescent. James is there to discuss his book, “Certified Copy,” in which he parallels the reproduction of art with the reproduction of the human race. It’s no coincidence that the film begins in James’s absence, as the camera lingers on an empty booth awaiting the tardy author. “I’m so sorry I’m late,” quips James upon his arrival. “I would blame the traffic, but I walked here.” Somehow, the distant man always ends up being closer than one would assume.

Soon after the lecture, Elle and James cross paths in her shop, while surrounded by dozens of priceless antique copies. She offers to show him a place outside of town that he might find “interesting.” This leads to the first of many mesmerizing extended takes brilliantly lensed by cinematographer Luca Bigazzi (“Il Divo”). As Elle drives James down the streets of her town, the reflections of surrounding buildings are cast upon the windshield, separating the two riders with a void of blue sky. Their polite and friendly chatter carries ominous undertones of tension and repressed pain. When James describes his beliefs about life in terms decidedly cerebral and abstract, he inadvertently provokes an emotional response from Elle, whose mood swings become increasingly more violent. The key turning point in the picture takes place in a café, where James recounts his observations of a mother and her son, causing Elle to burst into tears. It’s precisely at this moment that the audience begins to wonder whether these two have an unspoken history. It’s to Kiarostami’s credit that the film never directly answers this question.

William Shimell and Juliette Binoche star in Abbas Kiarostami’s Certified Copy.
Photo credit: IFC Films

What makes the film so spellbinding is the extent to which the audience is allowed to be an active participant in the story as it unfolds and then folds upon itself. In some sequences, the camera cuts back and forth between the two characters, allowing the viewer to literally share each of their perspectives. The arguments Elle and James have about art could easily be applied to film criticism, and suggest that an overly critical eye has a tendency to blind one from accurately experiencing the subject of analysis. Luis Buñuel’s frequent collaborator Jean-Claude Carrière pops up in an amusing cameo that demonstrates the deceptive nature of a limited perspective. He’s one of several extraneous characters in the picture who swiftly materialize, size up the situation, offer their impassioned interpretation and then promptly vanish. After Elle’s meltdown in the café, James leaves for a phone call, leading the café’s waitress to mistakenly identify him as Elle’s husband. This inspires the two companions to role play as if they were an estranged couple. Are their passionate exchanges an extension of their earlier arguments, or are they truly unearthing fragments of a fifteen year history together?

James may be Elle’s husband no more than Sabzian was Makhmalbaf, but their words are so entrenched in truth that they create a reality unto themselves, regardless of their supposed artifice. Perhaps the two would-be lovers are copying the behavior of couples they’ve observed in the past and, for that matter, the present. On their journey, they encounter various people, from newlyweds to elderly couples, who sometimes resemble a still life ripe for sketching. Is Elle and James’s relationship any less real than the endless love stories throughout human history influenced by the traditions and tales of ancestors? Isn’t art at its very essence a copy of the world as we perceive it? As James reflects, “Perhaps the only original [artwork] is the girl in the picture.”

‘Certified Copy’ stars Juliette Binoche and William Shimell. It was written and directed by Abbas Kiarostami. It opened March 18 at the Landmark Century Centre Cinema and the Landmark Renaissance Place, and is available On Demand. It is not rated.