Certified Copy

Juliette Binoche and William Shimmel wonder who will play the drunk this time in Certified Copy

Abbas Kiarostami's Certified Copy, from 2010, is a robust work from a modern master. Elle (Juliette Binoche) attends a lecture by art critic James Miller (opera Baritone William Shimmel) who questions notions of originality and authenticity. The identity of each character is relative, though, and each changes identity halfway through the movie. For Kiarostami, each mutation is an embodiment of masculine and feminine traits: passion bridling against order, emotion versus intellect, instinct versus reason. This is not a union of opposites, but two ambivalent creatures juggling their senses and wits.

During the first half of the film, Binoche is a single lady who is equivocal in her attempt at seducing the writer. He is the more impassive figure, she the more chimerical. ("La Donna E Mobile") She veers from kittenish repartee with the writer to curt dismissals of his insights. She attempts to provoke and delight him, but he remains remote. In the second half of the film, the couple morphs into veterans of a longstanding marriage. Binoche's character tries to fan the flames of lost passion by smearing on lipstick and reminiscing about their honeymoon, but, again, the male member does not respond or recognize her intent.

The presence of Jean-Claude Carriere tips us off to Kiarostami's intent, an updating of the European art films of the 60s and 70s. He also channels Rossellini's Voyage to Italy, another film of an ambivalent couple walking the streets of Italy. Certified Copy is not a traditional dramatic narrative or romance, but a meditation on subjectivity. The window frames, picture frames, mirrors and telephone screens that pop up in Certified Copy point to the film's message: we are all stuck within our own frame of view and all human connection is tenuous.