Certified Copy

There are some movies that require you to check your brains at the door, and there are others that require one to think in a deep and profound way. I prefer the latter, which is why Abbas Kiarostami's Certified Copy is a feast for the intellect, as well as the senses. It is not an easy film to digest, and I dare say no one can really understand it, not completely, as there is an unsolvable problem that occurs midway through the film.

We start at a book signing and reading in an Italian city. A British author (William Shimell), has written a book on the nature of copies versus originals. He claims that a copy can have just as much beauty and authenticity as an original, and that any original is just a copy of something else; for example, all human beings are just copies of the original strand of DNA that traces back to Lucy.

A French antiques dealer (Juliette Binoche) is intrigued by the book. She attends the reading but has to leave because her tween son is hungry. But she buys six books, and leaves her number with Shimell's translator.

The next day Shimell arrives at her shop and she takes him out of the city, going to a small town where there is a museum with a painting that was once thought to be an original, but was discovered to be a copy (interestingly, it is always a "copy," not a "fake," or a "duplicate") but is still venerated and has a place of honor in the museum. Binoche is a fan of Shimell's, and he signs her books, but she has some disagreements with him.

The two stop for coffee and the proprietor of the shop mistakes them for a married couple. Binoche tells the woman he doesn't speak French or Italian. Shimell tells a story about a mother and child in Florence, and realizes he is speaking about Binoche and her son. Shimell, in hearing about Binoche's troubles with her son, shrugs his shoulders like a bachelor.

But then, about halfway through the film, the relationship between the two changes. Shimell begins to speak French. We are led to believe they are husband and wife, and that the son is theirs. The town they visit is the one in which they were married, and Binoche takes him to the hotel where they spent their wedding night, but he remembers none of it. His philosophy is that things change, and it is the ability to adapt to these changes that make a marriage work.

So what is going on here? Were they pretending not to know each other in the first half of the film? Not likely. Are they pretending to be married? Also not likely. The only conclusion I can reach is that Kiarostami has broken a rule of narrative, and made his characters change identity halfway through the film. The literal-minded will struggle with "wait a minute, I thought that..." but to fully grasp the enormity of this film's impact one must resist, and let it go. Kiarostami is coloring outside the lines, and in doing so has made a film that lasts long after the closing credits.

In some ways it reminds me of Michael Haneke's Cache (also starring Binoche), which also had an unsolvable mystery. There's even a hint of Vertigo, which also played with identity, and had some mysteries of its own. Others have compared it to L'Avventura, which also breaks basic rules of narrative.

I suppose the biggest clue is the title itself. If you think about it, "certified copy," though a legal term, is an oxymoron. If it's a copy, how can it be certified? Again, the word "duplicate" is never used--we are not talking about Xerox copies, or reproductions of a photographic negative. We are talking about representations of a thing that are not that thing, but close. For example, Binoche speaks of her sister (a sibling is something of a copy of one's self), who says that a good copy is better than the original, and cites a gas-burning fireplace instead of a wood fire--you just turn the switch on it and it flames up. Another example I can think of is margarine instead of butter--many people (including me) are so inured to the taste of the copy that the real thing tastes too strong.

But the key example is Andy Warhol's Campbell Soup Can. A soup can, on its own, is not a work of art, but if you paint one and stick it in a museum people are forced to view it in a new light, and the perception itself is what makes it art. Perhaps this is what Certified Copy is--its a sum of the perception of the viewer's reaction to the switch in the characters' relationship. I just don't know.

I will say that the film is just about perfect. Binoche, as usual, is luminously magnificent, while Shimell, an opera singer, is amazingly self-assured in his debut role. Kiarostami's camera is always in the right spot, and makes excellent use of close-ups, particularly of both principles when are staring into a mirror. There's a wonderful shot of Shimell sitting outside the sanctuary of the church where he and Binoche might have been married. A golden tree is inside, which villagers think of as good luck for their marriages. He is asked to come inside to take a picture with a bride and groom, but resists, but Kiarostami shows the tree in deep focus in the background, with Shimell almost being spiritually tugged to leave the foreground. Finally, the bride emerges and pulls him back.

Certified Copy is a fine film, and a perfect one to argue over coffee and pie after the show.