Abbas Kiarostami (Iran, 1940-2016)

Certified Copy (2010)

(This review, written as part of the BBC’s 100 Greatest Films of the 21st Century, freely makes reference to other films from the same list and does not read as well when taken out of its original context. It is reproduced here only for the convenience of having a director’s works collected on the same page.)

In yet another coincidence, we have two movies in a row which amply feature full conversations that flit from one language to another and back again; I couldn’t recall a single one that I had seen prior to Inglourious Basterds, which may have been why I found its interplay so enthralling. Now I have seen two.   

We have a French woman, played by Juliette Binoche, and an English gentleman, played by William Shimell, both somewhat quintessentially representing their respective nationalities, in Tuscany. They don’t know each other, but she- an antiques dealer- is an admirer of his intellectual, theoretical writing. She comes to one of his readings, buys six of his books to give to friends and subsequently manages to arrange a meeting with him. They go on a small road trip. They lightly discuss philosophy and art. They slowly start to get to know each other. They share the kind of push-pull, gently probing conversation that two erudite people do when they are in the embryonic stages of a potential friendship or possible romance. It’s all very charming.

Then, around the film’s mid-point, something changes completely. It’s not announced in any way, but suddenly the two are a married couple that have just traversed their 15th wedding anniversary. Binoche’s son, a precocious irritant who we meet at the beginning of the picture, is now ‘their’ son, and they have baggage.

A lot of baggage.

They air it all out for us to absorb.

What does it all mean?

Well, as usual, it’s pure speculation. This could simply be a piece of formal experimentation, designed to provoke thought in the viewer. It could be that the two characters are, for some reason, role-playing, and they have managed to catch some shared wavelength that they together take to exuberant extremes. Maybe they are playing a Wittgenstein-esque language game. Or maybe the film is running on some sort of dream logic. Maybe they never really meet at all, and Binoche’s character, who was initially awestruck at the thought of meeting Shimell’s, is indulging an extended fantasy about driving through the Tuscan landscape with him which, for some unknown reason, turns sour, as dreams often inexplicably do. In fact, maybe everything that transpires between them is a reflection of her real marriage and this writer, this figure of admiration, is serving as a stand-in for a completely different man.

There’s a sadness to Certified Copy in the way it comments on how love can turn into indifference and hostility, especially when fragments of the love still survive and emerge intermittently, serving to remind you of what you don’t have anymore. But I wonder if I would have preferred the film that would have resulted from a following of the first half’s framework; it might not have been particularly substantial, and it certainly wouldn’t have been taxing, but I suppose that I am, almost subconsciously, always craving cohesion. I often don’t mind movies where nothing much happens as long as the characters are engaging enough (as we will later discover when I review Lost in Translation), and in this case, the scenery would have been beautiful, too. Kiarostami could have made two separate films from this, and he could have used the same two actors if he wanted to give them a definitive, formal, ‘twinning’ juxtaposition. In keeping with the film’s title and themes, they could have been ‘copies’ of each other, just as the other couples we meet across the movie, all at different stages of their marriages, are ‘copies’ of our central pair. As it is, Certified Copy feels like these two hypothetical films stitched together, and not always with the highest level of care. Of course, Kiarostami is overtly taking risks, producing material that he knows has the potential to disconcert, jarring us out of our malaise, and purposely, if not necessarily purposefully, pushing at the foundational tenets of character-based drama. That’s all fine. But as it is, I was left with another cinematic experience that, on many levels, I enjoyed and respected, but left me feeling unfulfilled and relatively unmoved as the credits rolled. The resigned sadness that the picture managed to evoke was exactly that- resigned. Listless, taciturn. Inert.

Ten (2002) 

(This review, written as part of the BBC’s 100 Greatest Films of the 21st Century, freely makes reference to other films from the same list and does not read as well when taken out of its original context. It is reproduced here only for the convenience of having a director’s works collected on the same page.)

Having just referred to Syndromes and a Century as a series of conversations, I now encounter a film which takes such a description to, surely, its most concentrated, minimalist level, as if to say ‘You thought that was conversation-based? Ha! Try this.’

It’s ten conversations, hence the title (the last one is like a tiny ‘reprise’, less than a minute long, so it’s nine, really), and all of them are in a car. That’s the entire film. One camera angle records the driver, one angle records the passenger, and in some exchanges, only one participant is onscreen throughout.

I wasn’t feeling this one at all. I mean, ‘static’ isn’t really the word. The picture quality is not good; shot on digital video, it looks exactly like a home movie. From what I can see, however, there was no real incentive to employ any fine cinematography; after all, do we need it when the film has no aesthetic element to it at all?

I have to ask myself if I could have enjoyed a film like this if I had been interested in the conversations, and the answer, I suppose, theoretically, is yes. I mean, I love 12 Angry Men, but I’m not sure such a comparative reference is apt- the Lumet masterwork may be set in one room, but that’s simply not as restrictive as a car, especially when you’re dealing with a much larger cast of characters, and they have something specific and pressing to talk about.

This is, then, a ‘slice-of-life’ movie, ultra-realistic, and within that framework, I guess it does contain a certain amount of modest tension. Again, there is a question of minutiae here, just as there was with Syndromes and a Century, and just as there was, to a lesser extent, with the decidedly more sweeping Yi Yi. When we are presented with scenes of humdrum, everyday routine, and there is no obvious way to ascertain their significance, are we supposed to ascribe our own? Are we meant to ‘step outside’ our usual expectations of cinema and reassess its general purpose?

One gets a small insight into Iranian life, especially where its women are concerned (though if that’s what you’re looking for, I would suggest that A Separation is by far the more valuable piece). Aside from that, what have I learned about the streets of downtown Tehran? Almost nothing. What have I learned about bratty, obnoxious children? That I don’t like seeing their thoughts expressed in uninterrupted single-shot takes that last close to twenty minutes.

What have I learned about cinema? That I prefer other types.