Copie conforme (Certified Copy)
2010
**½
Director: Abbas Kiarostami
Cast: Juliette Binoche, William Shimell, Jean-Claude Carrière, Agathe Natanson, Gianna Giachetti, Adrian Moore, Angelo Barbagallo
While promoting his new book Certified Copy, in which he argues that there is a fine line between a copy and the original, a British writer goes on a drive around the Tuscany region with a female antiques dealer. As the afternoon progresses, a sober conversation between two strangers begins to take an unexpectedly intimate tone. Abbas Kiarostami explores the central theme, copy vs. original, through the characters, their professional and personal lives, and the dialogue between the two. His drama looks really interesting and ambiguous, but mostly on paper. The opening minutes are some of the dullest in modern cinema. The film does recover from this early stupor, but it never becomes terribly captivating. The conversation stays mostly on abstract level, and Kiarostami is more interested in his grand scheme than the people within it.
