Certified Copy

Synopsis:  A single and unnamed mother (Juliette Binoche) is a French woman living in Tuscany. She attends a lecture by British author, James Miller (William Shimmell). His book Certified Copy deals with the issues of art and artistic copies – can a beautiful copy be as authentic and meaningful as the original? Upon meeting James, the woman decides to spend a day with him showing him around the countryside. They are mistaken for a married couple. Gradually the line between who they really are and the fantasy of who they might be becomes blurred.

Abbas Kiarostami often invites his audience by the use of long takes to simply concentrate upon what is on the screen even though little happening. In the opening credits of this film we look at one static scene for several minutes, but the mise en scène is so carefully created I found myself instantly drawn in – a book, two microphones, water glasses, and a fireplace with Latin inscription all sit waiting for the author who arrives late, and treats us, the audience to a reading from his book. Meantime we briefly see the audience, amongst whom is the woman with her endlessly nagging son who causes her to have to leave early. Hence her meeting the next day with James, who has aroused the son’s suspicions that his mother has a romantic interest in this man.

The two characters are diametrically opposed. I am reminded in some ways of the man and woman who walk and talk in Richard Linklater’s Before Sunset (2004), but there is no easy camaraderie or simpatico here. At times she comes across as emotional and warm whilst at other times she is testy, even hostile. He comes across as a cold, clinical and uncompassionate man, and yet paradoxically he declares the prime purpose of life is “to have fun”.  Suddenly, through a chance misunderstanding, these two become a married couple of 15 years who are full of the recriminations found in so many long-term relationships. Are they really married or are they playing an elaborate game, a certified copy of a fraught marriage? Why on earth would they both be so keen to pursue this bizarre charade? Kiarostami gives us no explanation and perhaps that is his point - it doesn't really matter, the effect is the same.

So many of the film’s scenes are stunningly shot – a subtle interplay of light and shadow, the careful placement of sparse objects, and one memorable scene in which an old Tuscan town passes by merely as a reflection in the car’s windscreen – all this careful directorial attention to the setting and the sensitive cinematography  makes the film a treat to look at.

Binoche received the Best Actress award at Cannes last year. She is at once fragile and vulnerable, strong and aggressive. Although she is, as always, a consummate actor, surprisingly, Shimmell, an opera singer, is making his film debut here. Their interaction is uncomfortably authentic, whilst, ironically, being grounded in a relationship that is not – and herein lies the crux of the film’s fascinating themes: what is and isn’t real? After all film is merely a representation, some might say, a copy of life.

Certified Copy is not film to give any easy answers and that is typical enough of  Kiarostami but for once it is a film from the director that not only  provokes but entertains.

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