Certified Copy (2010)
Review of Certified Copy (2010), directed by Abbas Kiarostami
I stumbled upon this film completely by accident. I was trying to look up Abbas Kiarostami films that were from Iran on my Criterion account, and this was how I discovered he did films in other countries.
I absolutely adore Iranian cinema as a national cinema, especially in the era that was the 1990s to the mid-2000s, and since acquiring my Criterion account I’ve really been trying to itch that craving to watch movies from this era. But I genuinely had no idea that Kiarostami did films in other countries, although I knew that he lived out the end of his days in France.
What interested me particularly about this movie was the fact that the female lead was an antiques dealer and the male lead was a writer.
That sounds like a mashup of two jobs that I’d dream of doing if it were sustainable for my wallet, so in a way I was attracted to this in a superficial way. While this is a psychologically complex film, I wasn’t a fan of it. As my father would say to most of the food I’d cook, “Not my type.”
Let’s start this review.
A French antiques dealer and a British writer meet over the course of the day, making an odd relationship.
The opening of this film immediately sets the scene for the strange relationship that begins to unfold in the later scenes. An antiques dealer, our female lead who remains unnamed, is attending a lecture with her eleven-year-old son.
The scene is Italy, where neither of our main characters are actually from. The lecturer’s name is James Miller, he has just come from the United Kingdom, and his new book (he’s a writer) is about the concept of art forgery.
He’s trying to argue whether or not forgeries should be considered forgeries, just because every single reproduction of an artwork is technically considered an original.
He then argues that the original artwork is also considered another copy. On a philosophical level, I can vibe with this, especially considering the fact that every artist gets their inspiration from someone else usually—specifically when we consider design aesthetics.
My favorite scene honestly was at the beginning, before the leads started engaging in this strange relationship over the course of the day. The antiques dealer has to leave the book talk early because her son is acting up, then they go to a diner.
They then seems to have this fight at the diner, which reminded me of another movie I watched lately (Beautiful Boy; there’s a scene where the main characters in that movie have a big fight in a diner). I found this to be the most intimate scene in the movie, thought it was going to be setting the scene, but then I was quite disappointed.
The biggest part of the movie is that it wants you to think about what is real, what is a copy, and what is quote-on-quote the original.
Halfway through the movie these two strangers, the writer and the dealer, suddenly are switching in narratives. They were strangers and suddenly they’re acting like they’re a couple that’s been married for fifteen years.
We’re forced to ask about what is real and what isn’t, or how the reality of what is deemed real can quickly shift once two people decide that’s no longer the truth.
There’s hints that they actually know each other, which makes it even stranger to me. First of all, she has a reserved spot at a popular art writer’s reading. I imagine she either had to have known him or known someone important.
There was then the fact that after she leaves the lecture early, the writer then knows where to find her antique shop.
The son also makes a comment specifically about her falling in love with a British writer, which threw me off completely because of how they acted like strangers. I was thinking about how maybe she was so obsessed with the writer that she ended up falling in love with him, but then a wrench is thrown into this when they actually start acting like a couple.
Overall Thoughts
The acting and cinematography in this movie is excellent. But I can’t vibe with this movie specifically because of the plot. I wasn’t looking to debate about what exactly this movie is about or how to debate what is real or isn’t.
While this may not have been my cup of tea, I’m sure that someone else would enjoy this movie greatly. If you like to think about art and philosophy, which the discussions were absolutely wonderful about in this film, then this is the film for you.
However, I just couldn’t get with it because of the plot. It’s a beautiful movie though, that’s for sure. I wanted more.
