Abbas Kiarostami’s Copie Conforme played here at Cannes to a mostly positive reception. Many found it one of the best things they’ve seen here so far. Today, they had their photo call and press conference, which means that tonight they will have their gala premiere.
The film is a showcase of the wonderful Juliette Binoche, who speaks no less than three languages in the film, while also exhibiting an array of emotions from start to finish. The film is absurdist, really, when you get down to it. It probably means whatever you want it to mean.
The loose plot is that an antique shop owner goes to the booksigning of a famous author. He comes to visit her shop afterwards and they decide to go for a drive. You know you aren’t watching a traditional film at that point because writer/director Kiarostami holds the camera straight in front of them as they drive in the car, never cutting away from their faces.
It starts to get a little weird there and it just keeps getting weirder. Do they know each other? Have they known each other before? Are they married? Are they playing a game? There isn’t a definitive answer one way or another. Kiarostami said in the press conference that his characters are based on real life experiences, namely his own. So as they drift in and out making random observations on life, so does our curiosity intensify. The general theme is a meditation on whether it matters if something, a work of art, a person, is the copy or the original.
The male character in the film sort makes the declaration that it doesn’t matter. Since Binoche sells antiques, that in itself shows she is on the other side of that argument. So they kind of debate this, slip into roles and spend the whole movie drifting in and out of French, Italian and English.
There are many who would be intrigued by this and eager to go right back and watch it again in order to figure out the plot once and for all. I’m not sure that is necessary. It is playful and funny – and maybe that is all it needs to be. For me, in my current state of mind and general fatigue it isn’t really my thing.
I like the question he poses about copies vs. originals and whether it makes a difference to one’s appreciation of it. My big problem with the movie, other than the obvious frustration with watching a cat chase its own tail for an hour and a half, is that the male actor is such a cold fish.
Binoche takes off her bra and rubs her bare feet and that barely registers on the dude.  His indifference towards her seemed unrealistic and ultimately unsatisfying.
Binoche is wonderful. An Oscar nod is a very outside chance. This is exactly the kind of movie Oscar voters would hate. Of course just writing that challenges them to think differently. The film bloggers (the majority of them are mid 20’s to early 30’s, male, unmarried) would probably be horrified if the Academy embraced their darling (this is going to be the Summer Hours of 2010).
I didn’t hate it – didn’t love it. Appreciated it. It’s not up to Kiarostami’s other films, in my view. But I might watch it again at some point just for curiosity’s sake. Then again, I could just beat my head against the wall for an hour and a half and call it a day.