Movies Reviews

Certified Copy – Movie Review

By Ron Wilkinson Mar 15, 2011, 13:45 GMT

In Tuscany to promote his latest book, a middle-aged English writer meets a French woman who leads him to the village of Lucignano. ...more

A feast for the eyes and a narrative that refuses to give itself away.

Filmed in Tuscany, Italy, Abbas Kiarostami’s simmering “Certified Copy” is as lush as the countryside and as considered as the people who live there. Zillion award winner Juliette Binoche joins newcomer William Shimell in this film of playful intrigue that circles around the subjects of love and commitment while fending off intruding reality.

One can tell from the trailers and posters that this movie is not going to shrink from making demands on the audience. The main demand is that the audience has to accept the absence of a plot. The characters simply “are.”

The film could be shown in reverse and the impressions would be about the same. The beauty of the movie is that this suspension in time serves to further the remarkable non-reality created and sustained for almost the entire 106 minutes of the work.

Kiarostami’s awards are less universal than those of Binoche, being limited to the refined atmospheres of Cannes and Venice. Like his indie favorite “Men at Work” this film is less concerned about telling a story than it is about setting a tone. The action in the foreground is superficial while the background serves to convey the message of the film. Conventional roles of narrative and setting are reversed, sometimes with hilarious consequences.

Putting aside issues of accessibility, “Certified Copy” is a feast of cinematography and directorial virtuosity. The camera shots are lengthy and involve much movement from place to place. The shots are frequently, perhaps entirely, taken with a hand-held camera and they bump and bob along much the same as the characters in the story.

Even when the characters are not moving, there is a slight wobble to the camera that brings subtle, playful movement to the pensive and, at times, downright serious, nature of the couple. The constant camera movement allows extensive off-screen action as the couple is separated and rejoined by the camera and the dialog continues unabated within the frame and outside of it.

Set in the Tuscan countryside, the surroundings are predictably gorgeous. The director succeeds in bringing out every nuance of that sumptuous brick, plaster, wood, cobblestone, paint, pottery and costumery that makes up the finest of the old villages of central Italy.

Camera angles are no-nonsense straight on, steering clear of de-stabilizing high and low shots while taking advantage of those cute windows, doors, cubbyholes and reflective surfaces. The result is a king’s table of scenes within scenes.

Sometimes, three or four scenes are shown at the same time, each one acting out a portion of the couple’s feelings while the two discuss what is and is not possible in human relationships.

Considering the tight coordination required of the director, cinematographer and editor to pull this off, it is no surprise that the editor, Bahman Kiarostami, is director Abbas’ son. Cinematographer Luca Bigazzi is as much a master of his craft as the director is of his. Together, these three have constructed a masterpiece of visual treats.

The beauty of the photography, alone, is enough to justify the price of admission but this film is not easy to follow nor is it entirely fair to the viewer. It takes too many twists and turns that fail to coalesce into a story.

If you like old school, “foreign” style films with the long takes and the meandering scenes, you will like this film. If the disjointed nature of the narrative gets tedious the multi-dimensional lushness of the photography makes up for it. The constant bustle off screen and in the background makes the film a fun adventure in cinematography, at least for the old-school aficionados.

There is conflict between the hyper-energetic lensing and the hard-to-follow story. The viewer was forced to make a choice—the two together are a bit much. The best choice is to consume the beauty of the photography like a Christmas dinner and give up trying to figure out the story (at least, give up figure it out completely). A great film for a rainy day, but have a cup of coffee, first.

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Directed and Written by: Abbas Kiarostami
Starring: Juliette Binoche, William Shimell and Jean-Claude Carrière 
Release Date: March 11, 2011
MPAA: Not Rated
Runtime: 106 minutes
Country: France / Italy / Iran
Language: French / Italian / English
Color: Color