Iranian writer-director Abbas Kiarostami, in his first film outside his native country, brings us an English man (William Shimell) and a French woman (Juliette Binoche) in Italy. He’s an art historian on a book tour, pushing his volume about originals and copies in the art world (thus the movie’s name) in “Certified Copy,” which opens here today. She runs a small antiques gallery.
Kiarostami’s point, echoed by Shimell, is that art is a collection of copies. Isn’t La Giaconda a real woman, an original, and isn’t the painting, the Mona Lisa, just Leonardo da Vinci’s copy of her reality?
Binoche, a long-time gem of French cinema, doesn’t have a name. Is that an attempt to create mystery, or to de-mystify her? But she’s still lovely, and maturity has brought a touch of softness to her face. She also won the best-actress award at Cannes last spring for the performance. Shimell, a bass-baritone who has sung with most of the world’s top opera companies, is making his film debut, and he’s exciting.
So is their relationship, which moves like a butterfly in a breeze, alighting here, then there, then somewhere else. Kiarostami keeps us guessing, and does it in an elegant manner, with overtones of classic French film along the way. The relationship might be a married couple on a little fantasy trip, or an unmarried couple, a married person and a lover, two people in a long (possibly sexual) relationship, or two people who just met. Binoche is the pursuer at Shimell’s talk, buying six books, then leaving suddenly because her son is hungry; Adrian Moore is terrific as the boy, a pre-teenager who is as obnoxious as he is precocious.
Binoche catches up with Shimell again, drives him to Lucignago, a small town in the beautiful Tuscan hills. They walk and talk, of and around the relationship, visiting what appears to be a mass wedding celebration; Binoche speaks of the site as being where she and Shimell were married, 15 years ago to the day. Truth? Fantasy? Poetry? A woman in a restaurant speaks to Binoche as if she were married at least that long.
They stop at a restaurant, where Shimell proves himself a wine snob and pouts like a kindergartner. They discuss the Italian wine, which Binoche describes, in nationalistic terms, as “better than yours, not as good as mine.”
The sparring continues. Sex is discussed, but only subliminally. Kiarostami’s camera looks, pauses, thinks. The fluid use of language, from English to French to Italian and back again is smooth, but the director continues to resist commitment; once again there is nothing on which to hang a hat, or a thinking cap.
And as the sun sets on this brilliant, thought-provoking, distinctive film, one remembers the old line, “Anywhere I hang my hat is home.”
Certified Copy opens today at the Plaza Frontenac
—Joe