Copie Conforme (2010) (Certified Copy)
Abbas Kiarostami
French/Italian/English
A possible manifesto for postmodernism, Abbas Kiarostami’s Certified Copy (2010) reminds one of a million other pictures – from the director’s own early films, through Godard, Rossellini, and Hitchcock, to Scorsese, Hou and Jarmusch – in both its major and minor strokes. This actually goes well with the film’s central argument of there being no originals in art as well as life. It asserts, as does Jarmusch’s latest, that meaning and authenticity exist in one’s gaze of objects rather than the objects themselves (Like the director’s previous film, this one reverses the artist-audience relationship and suggests that the viewer is the original author of works of art), that the question of authenticity is obviated if a (relative) truth could be arrived at through artifice, that no art can be inherently original given that it is feeds on and reshapes reality and that all aspects of human existence – appearance, language, behaviour, relationships and gestures – are reproductions of existing templates. Building upon the latter argument, the film examines the importance and inevitability of role-playing in our lives through the lead characters/actors (Juliette Binoche and William Shimmel), who bear an original-copy relationship themselves. Through them, the film proposes that there is no absolute ‘self’ and that it is only within context and within a relationship that each ‘role’ we play obtains a meaning. It is not that these two characters are faking it during one half of the film, but just that – like Sartre’s waiter – these inauthentic people segue from one level of role-playing to another (On one level, Certified Copy is a film where actors play characters playing characters playing characters). Akin to Shutter Island (2010), Certified Copy is divided into two realities, with the verity of each half being valid only in relation to that of the other. However, there’s much more to Kiarostami’s film than such straightforward illustration of philosophical ideas. (Like Scorsese’s movie, this one wears its themes on its sleeve, thereby undermining them.) Throughout, it probes where the essence and authenticity of a film rests: in its grand, ethereal ideas or in its banal, concrete physicality. Does the spirit of Certified Copy lie in its precise, recursive structure and its intricate mise en scène or is it in the minute, magical gestures of Binoche’s visage and the gentle eroticism of her loose-fitting gown?
October 31, 2010 at 8:08 pm
I suspect that its mise en scene and cinematography in general is slightly satirical, or at least poking fun at the kind of movie it seems to resemble (couple on vacation pictures like Two For The Road), albeit in a very playful way. It’s just too pretty and precise, I remember one critic at the NYFF compared the way it looks to a car commercial, and that strikes me as probably intentional. Ounpuu did that too with The Temptation Of St. Tony, it becomes difficult to distinguish whether it’s a Bela Tarr movie or a Lexus commercial. I think that really distinguishes Certified Copy from Shutter Island–and they’re both films I like. But Scorsese has this cinematic fixation, as if if he could only recreate a frame of Fuller or Ray or Powell it would somehow complete him, and that’s completely lacking in Kiarostami. He has no faith in aesthetics as a thing in itself.
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October 31, 2010 at 8:40 pm
I guess you’re right, Peter. One aspect that seems to be present throughout Kiarostami’s career is his dependence on chance and accident. He seems to allow, hope for and celebrate such vagaries in both his script and mise en scene to the point that it has become the major parameter in his modus operandi in recent years. Scorsese, OTOH, I feel is as rigorous as ever, packing his cine-love into a dense, never-superfluous mesh and integrating it into the films. And I dig both!
Cheers!
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November 1, 2010 at 5:30 pm
Hi JAFB
I have reading your blog for a while & commend you on the breadth of movies covered and the writing itself
I understand you are based in b’lore . Where did you manage to see certified copy (specifically) and so many others in general which never seem to hit india?
Srinivas
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November 1, 2010 at 6:21 pm
Thanks Srinivas,
Yes, these films will _never_ hit the Indian screens. It’s all off the net. The older ones, however, are available on DVD rentals.
Cheers!
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November 5, 2010 at 2:18 am
Kiarostami has been moving only ahead in the process of stripping cinema of its necessities for all of his career. In this aspect Copie conforme seems to be on a different track. But who cares? I’m sure I’ll find it amazing when I’ll see it as well. Glad you liked it.
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November 9, 2010 at 8:04 pm
CC is certainly on a different track, but I’d say that Kiarostami is still as experimental as ever.
Cheers!
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November 7, 2010 at 2:21 am
“Akin to Shutter Island (2010), Certified Copy is divided into two realities, with the verity of each half being valid only in relation to that of the other. However, there’s much more to Kiarostami’s film than such straightforward illustration of philosophical ideas. (Like Scorsese’s movie, this one wears its themes on its sleeve, thereby undermining them.)”
Very unexpected but nonetheless fascinating comparison, as is the unlikely mixed reaction to the film. But I’ve learned more from this capsule than I have from other more superficial raves. Of course I adore Kiarostami, and have always considered A TASTE OF CHERRY, THE WIND WILL WILL CARRY US and TEN as masterpieces. I can’t wait to see this, but will keep in mind your intricate perceptions.
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November 9, 2010 at 8:05 pm
Thanks, Sam. I adore this film. I’m sure you’ll too.
Cheers!
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November 26, 2010 at 10:17 am
Agreed. Certified Copy resonated with me in a way that I found utterly surprising. I only hope that it finds its way to the audience it deserves.
-Adam
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November 8, 2010 at 8:27 am
[…] At “The Seventh Art” Just Another Film Buff delivers a scholarly (what else is new?) mini-treatise on Abbas Kiarostami’s new film, Certified Copy: https://theseventhart.info/2010/10/31/ellipsis-16/ […]
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January 1, 2011 at 11:40 pm
[…] Certified Copy (Abbas Kiarostami, […]
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February 22, 2011 at 11:41 pm
[…] rarely films his couple (Kurosh Afsharpanah and Shohreh Aghdashloo) together in the frame. Like Certified Copy (2010), which is the closest film to this one in terms of scenario, the director severs the […]
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