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Certified Copy (2009)

Director: Abbas Kiarostami

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29 reviews

Movie review

From Time Out London

On the evidence of its chic promotional poster and a trailer intercut with wistful platitudes (‘He… a writer in search of meaning. She… an art dealer in search of originality’), you’d swear that ‘Certified Copy’ was the result of a ludicrous clerical error saddling Iranian maestro Abbas Kiarostami with the script for a droll coffee-table rom-com while, elsewhere in Europe, a baseball-capped minnow struggled to fashion an abstract visual essay on the nature of the subjective conscious. Of course, that’s not entirely the case. But while it’s true that Kiarostami appears to have drawn a line under a decade of provocative visual experimentation – resulting in such poetic cinematic workouts as ‘Five’, ‘Ten’ and ‘Shirin’ – not long into his latest it becomes clear that this is just as challenging, ambiguous and moving as anything he’s made before.

Like those earlier titles, the act of consuming ‘Certified Copy’ requires a willingness to engage in a game of intellectual hide-and-seek. In the past, Kiarostami challenged us to think about off-camera space – what is happening outside the frame that could influence what’s on the screen. Here, he offers a decontextualised fragment of a relationship which only begins to make sense if we consider the details outside the story’s timeframe. Juliette Binoche stars as a ruffled, slightly manic antique dealer, opposite English opera baritone William Shimell as an arrogant cultural commentator on a brief Italian stopover to deliver a lecture on the value of copies in art. Over the course of a single afternoon, they meet, drive into the Tuscan countryside, go for lunch, wander around a gallery and discuss the nuances of art, love, family and possible discrepancies in Shimell’s thesis. When a waitress naturally assumes the pair to be romantically entangled, Kiarostami takes that cue to have his characters mutate into what appears to be a bickering wedded couple. The game is set: is this love or just a copy?

There’s a pleasingly self-aware quality to the dialogue in the film, as if Kiarostami is anticipating the inevitable auteurist deconstructions of its meticulous structure and composition. In a telling line, Shimell admits, ‘I only wrote the book to convince myself of my own ideas,’ as if this rambling tale is organically working itself out as it goes along. Binoche and Shimell are superb: she expressive, impulsive and emotional; he haughty, dogmatic yet vulnerable. If there’s a problem with the film, it’s the idea that two people would instinctively choose to immerse themselves in unbroken role play.

It makes the ambiguities ring a little false and dampens the easy naturalism to which the film obviously aspires. But if Kiarostami’s fingerprints are occasionally evident on the screen, the pair’s off-kilter chemistry and the unquestionable artistry of the filmmaking prevents this from descending into an exercise in cold, technical pyrotechnics. And in true Kiarostami style, the final shot is an absolute doozy.

Author: David Jenkins

Time Out London Issue 2089: 2 – 8, September 2010

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User reviews of this film

herefordshireaardvark said...

Posted on Nov 19 2011 10:35 Having posted what one of the previous reviewers said was an impossible rating - *** - I thought I should say why. I love Binoche, and am also a fan of Rohmeresque films in which little happens except conversation. Where this film missed was in the setting up on the situation. Where there should have been a lightness of touch and perhaps some humour, the nature of Shimell's character seemed to have prevented that. That being the case is it likely that such an apparently self-opinionated and humourless man would join in such a game ? If it is not, then the proceedings lack credibility. The three stars are therefore mostly for Binoche who is her usual superb self, and for the wonderful and unusual cinematography. I particularly liked a discussion of a sculpture in which the sculpture itself is not fully revealed.

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Steve said...

Posted on Oct 17 2011 08:59 Apart from the nice scenery this was the most boring film I've seen in a long time. My wife hated it eveb more!

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valerie spentzos said...

Posted on Sep 15 2011 17:37 an enchanting film that combines sensuous beauty of person and place with searchhing questions on life, marriage, authenticity.

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Zoe Matthews said...

Posted on Feb 05 2011 23:02 I mostly loved the film. It had much resonance for me. Can one maintain authenticity in marriage, when the exchange of the heart becomes the exchange of the domestic.

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Petros in the North said...

Posted on Oct 09 2010 22:32 Doozy? Come on, David, you know the last line of your copy is the killer. Doozy??

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Marcia said...

Posted on Oct 04 2010 19:48 Eric - perhaps those who did enjoy this film were on drugs? (Those who did enjoy this film are also very much in the minority.) Are you so small minded that you can't respect the opinions of other people who've left their impressions of this film?

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Eric Wenderby said...

Posted on Sep 30 2010 08:19 This was a really compelling, enjoyable film, and over far too quickly! Those who didn't enjoy it (and even walked out!) are lacking in imagination...

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Ricky said...

Posted on Sep 30 2010 06:47 Seldom has a movie split opinion so srongly.-- 5 stars or 1 star?
I have been following readers reviews with great interest having written the first to appear in Time Out without seeing the movie.
The 1 star reviews almost put me off but what a delight to find that for me this was a 5 star movie.
I respectfully suggest that to enjoy this movie you have to be ready to be confronted with your own unloving responses to those you love.
This movie show brilliantly how over time romantic loving affection gradually transforms into companionability mixed up with hateful rejections of the beloveds incompatabilities with ones own values and preferences.
This transformation from the romantic hopes and desires of lovers to the married state with its endless repeated complaints about the other whether in thoughts or expressed in angry words is compressed into the space of a single Sunday surounded by beauty.
My response to this display of my own absurdities in relationship to those I love was to laugh with delight after the intial shock.
See it, you will either love this movie or hate it, there are no 3 star reviews!

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peter said...

Posted on Sep 29 2010 22:20 if you enjoy a traditional rather wordy art house film, this really is for you.I found myself unexpextedly emotionally moved by the interplay of ideas and emotion , lots to think about and discuss. Binoche is as ravishingly beautiful as the Tuscan villiages.

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Roberto Ghetti said...

Posted on Sep 29 2010 00:59 Tedious in the extreme. The scenes in Cortona and Lucignano were interesting as I know both well. But the film is boring. Four people walked out during the show my wife stopped me. The characters are thin, The dialogue is stilted and unnatural. The body language is absent. There are no dramatic moments to move the film on or ground the characters. The premise of the move is implausible and its unwinding is even more implausible. In short a frustrating and money wasting evening. Only worth seeing if you like disappointment.

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Andrew said...

Posted on Sep 27 2010 07:52 I admire Binoche - she's managed to steer clear of mainstream publicity, and appeared in some good movies - but this isn't one of them. I'm happy to go so far as to say, this is surely the worst of them. The plot and script are a mess. Though I don't doubt Kiarostami's held in great esteem by many, the fact of the matter is when you direct/produce movies, you're effectively inviting people to spend money to view your work – in return they’ll want to enjoy themselves and feel there’s some kind of reciprocity and value for money involved. This movie reminded me of the random way a very young child attempts to tell a story - completely random and nonsensical - unfortunately there’s very little of interest here that makes you want to make sense of it. Just because Kiarostami's highly regarded doesn’t mean he doesn’t slip up - just like the rest – you need only see Stephen Frears’ attempt at “Tamara Drewe” for another example. There are much better movies to see than this.

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spurtle said...

Posted on Sep 26 2010 12:06 The film provided the inspiration for an hour's post-screening review for my wife and I in a Pizza Express afterwards. A sumptious, bitter-sweet, serious-funny, wistful, intelligent film that rewards concentration and a willingness to ponder the many questions which it raises but does not answer - about life, love, relationships and art, amid beautiful Tuscan locations.

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Ian Hallsworth said...

Posted on Sep 22 2010 09:23 I have walked out of two films in my life - and this was one of them. Complete and utter bilge - pretentious clap-trap of the kind that gives art house films a bad name. It may have triggered a post-film debate about 'meaning' (or rather, 'what the dickens was going on?', but theh overwhelming feeling was one of anger at being ripped off for £12.50 each. Avoid.

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Matthew G said...

Posted on Sep 20 2010 13:48 Managed to last 40 minutes, before giving up: it quickly got boring eavesdropping on a meandering conversation between two deeply annoying people. It may have been better for television, A Short Film About Authenticity maybe, as it just doesn't work as a long film. Its deepest flaw is that if forgets that cinema is primarily a visual medium and not made for 100 minute conversations.

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Terry said...

Posted on Sep 12 2010 18:24 This film almost completely fails. What was the point of the whole role-play/ambiguous copy of a husband/husband thing? I have no idea, but enjoyed watching Juliette Binoche, and trying to make it make sense.

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