'Certified Copy' is the Real Deal

Easily the best movie to grace local screens this year, "Certified Copy" is one of those films that's a joy to watch and even more of a joy to think about afterwards. It's an amazing movie that will stay with you for days if not weeks.

A master class in acting, cinematography, storytelling and general filmmaking, "Certified Copy," the first European film directed by Iranian New Wave giant Abbas Kiarostami, is a meditation on art, marriage and much else. There's so much going on here that it's almost hard to know where to begin.

This very international production – shot in Italy with British and French leads, an Iranian director and language divided roughly into English, French and Italian – won prizes at Cannes in 2010. As long as its eligible I can't imagine it losing the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar next year.

"Certified Copy" begins with James Miller (William Shimell), an English author, delivering a library lecture in a Tuscan town on his book, also called "Certified Copy," which argues that replicas and forgeries of works of art are really no different from the originals. Soon afterward he meets a female art gallery manager (Juliette Binoche), unnamed in the film, who attended the lecture along with her teenage son.

The two, presumably strangers, go off on a drive, her mostly interviewing him about his book and artistic theories, until they arrive in a small village in the countryside with both an art museum and a church in which newly married couples regularly visit for good luck.

It is here that the movie takes an abrupt turn: the two are in a coffee shop and a barista mistakes them for a married couple. [SPOILERS FROM HERE ON OUT!]

The woman doesn't correct her and Miller plays along. They spend the remainder of the movie behaving as though they are, in fact, a long-married but estranged couple.

Was the original meeting a ruse and the following a role-playing game? Are they really strangers just playing along with each other as some sort of exercise? Or is there some other explanation, perhaps somewhere in between?

Like "Black Swan," there are already numerous theories as to what's really going on here. "Certified Copy" is one of those movies you'll want to go online and read ten essays about – but it's not one of those movies you need those ten essays in order to understand or enjoy.

Ultimately, the biggest question isn't "are they married?" but rather, "does it matter?"

I have my own theories, but I can say that the second question and the way it ties into the art/copy theory, has more dominated my thoughts since seeing the film. (I happened to see the movie at a theater a block away from where my own wedding took place, although my wife was not with me. And yes, she really is my wife.)

"Certified Copy" is full of amazing, heartbreaking scenes. Pay special attention to the way Kiarostami positions the camera, often holding one person in a still shot for as many as several minutes. The cinematography is also lush and beautiful, and despite the unpleasantness that takes place it made me want to get on a plane and visit that Tuscan village immediately.

The two leads both deliver performances that are nothing less than wondrous in nuance. Binoche has been in many films seen by American audiences, most notably "The English Patient" for which she won an Oscar, but this is the best I've ever seen her by far. I had assumed that Shimell, who resembles an older, silver-haired Chris Noth, must be some noted European actor with whom I was previously unfamiliar, but was shocked to discover that he is an opera singer who had never before appeared in a movie.

Even if foreign films aren't necessarily your bag, I highly recommend going to see "Certified Copy," and then spending a whole lot of time afterward thinking about and discussing it.

"Certified Copy," directed by Abbas Kiarostami and starring William Shimell, Juliette Binoche, Jean-Claude Carrière, and Adrian Moore. Not Rated; 1 hour, 46 minutes.

"Certified Copy," is  now playing at the Ritz V 220 Walnut Street in Philadelphia.

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