Certified Copy (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray]

I read a critique on this page that called this great film of Kiarostami's "pretentious" and then praised Antonioni. As if anyone who really understands Antonioni and doesn't pigeon-hole him into "plumbing the depths of modern alienation" (what does that 50 year old critics' cliche mean anyway? It means very little) would not be able to pay enough (very-well-paid and rewarding in spiritual terms) attention to understand and appreciate the many, MANY magnificent artful subtleties of Kiarostami in this film or let's say the myriad rare and subtle achievements of Rohmer's films which "Certified Copy" most resembles in a bit darker fashion. I've also noticed that these kinds of artless or attention-deficit people unable to concentrate on details in a frame and wanting to be force-fed and played like a piano don't like the fertile zeitgeist of the 1960's very much and especially the early and most revolutionary films of Godard which they consider "amateurish." They think it was childish and they, NOW, in this ridiculously hypocritical and fake world they've built with all this silly gadgetry used in the most superficial ways, are somehow better and more advanced! lol That's the biggest laugh of all. To think that a director who is a real artist (de-sign scientist, one who creates new signs or de-signifies through sensuous imagery) and not just dancing as a hack for money and fame and who makes a serious film SHOULD decide for us what "exactly" it's trying to say, as if real life ever does, rather than make the best presented case, with all warts intact, to let US, the other human beings viewing these representations (and hopefully able to process it), decide our own interpretation of it, as in real life we always do, for better or worse, and only in false artifice (the intuited and then fallaciously not-true-to-objective-reality approximated fake that does not make you see the real, the lie, copy or approximation that does not make you see the closest approximation: the truth or get you closer to this most valid conception but away from it towards more lies) for the worse, by the way. "Certified Copy" is certainly not false or pretentious art and Kiarostami's rare and formerly thought-to-be-lost 2nd film "The Report," made in 1976 during the last years of the Shah's Iran, also included on the Criterion Bluray, is even less so. That film, made close to 40 years ago, is even more masterful, one of his best. This guy is one of the very few master film-makers still left today. Most of of the overpraised others are pretenders to the throne. "It might be a basic characteristic of existence that those who would know it completely would perish, in which case the strength of spirit should be measured according to how much of the 'truth' one could still barely endure--or to put it more clearly, to what degree one would require it to be thinned down, shrouded, sweetened, blunted, falsified." ~ FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE, Beyond Good and Evil"The drive toward the formation of metaphors is the fundamental human drive, which one cannot for a single instant dispense with in thought, for one would thereby dispense with man himself. This drive is not truly vanquished and scarcely subdued by the fact that a regular and rigid new world is constructed as its prison from its own ephemeral products, the concepts. It seeks a new realm and another channel for its activity, and it finds this in myth and in art generally. This drive continually confuses the conceptual categories and cells by bringing forward new transferences, metaphors, and metonymies. It continually manifests an ardent desire to refashion the world which presents itself to waking man, so that it will be as colorful, irregular, lacking in results and coherence, charming, and eternally new as the world of dreams. Indeed, it is only by means of the rigid and regular web of concepts that the waking man clearly sees that he is awake; and it is precisely because of this that he sometimes thinks that he must be dreaming when this web of concepts is torn by art." ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, "On Truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense" (1873)“Every idea that is a true idea has a form, and is capable of many forms. The variety of forms of which it is capable determines the value of the idea. So by way of ideas, and your mastery of them in relation to what you are doing, will come your value as an architect to your society and future." - "Idea and Essence" September 7, 1958 ― Frank Lloyd Wright

Note that this review is for the film itself, which I saw in theaters (twice); I'm waiting for the Criterion Edition to ship (May 22) before I pick up my own copy.An author on tour to promote his book has an apparently chance meeting with a French woman (Juliette Binoche), and their encounter proves to be something far more than casual. He proposes in his book that a copy, an imitation, is as good as the genuine article, and while he appears to confine his thesis to works of art, what follows suggests that she may be testing to see how far it extends to life itself. The latest film by celebrated Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami is also his first to be filmed outside of his native country. Starring Juliette Binoche (who took home the best actress award at Cannes for her stunningly enigmatic performance in this film), Certified Copy starts from a premise that promises an exotic love story, and gradually turns into a subtle and profound meditation on art, memory, truth, and identity.To give a quick sense of the feel of this remarkable film I might suggest it combines the conversational intimacy of  Before Sunset  and the intellectual intrigue of  Last Year at Marienbad . The problem is that comparison makes this seem like a derivative work, that merely copies elements of established works. It's not. Like all of the works I've seen by Abbas Kiarostami, this is a true original. Or if its a copy, it's a genuine copy. It's a fascinating film, that I've seen twice now, and that I look forward to watching again, since I got even more from it the second time. It's a densely layered film, where details refer to other details, and each calls up a range of themes and ideas, but where the intellectual intrigue is balanced by an emotional tension and resonance, and that wears its layers lightly, almost as if it were all improvised. It's both a delightful romance - that might be said to skip the romance, straight to the after of the happily ever after - and a subtle philosophical exploration of a wide range of fascinating themes.By the way, here's what to expect when the Criterion edition ships:-a new high-definition digital restoration, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition-a new interview with director Abbas Kiarostami-"Let's See Copia conforme," an Italian documentary on the making of Certified Copy, featuring interviews with Kiarostami and actors Juliette Binoche and William ShimellTrailer-New English subtitle translation-PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by film critic Godfrey Cheshire

Fascinating film. Mysteriously the couple's relationship becomes completely unclear. Only one line near the end sets the story straight.One for Juliette Binoche fans.

Great item, greater seller. Many thanks.

none

Juliette was good but contents not what I though .

Two lives that are a carbon-copy of itself, so you as the viewer has to see who you are an what relatesto you, if you work all the time an don’t pay attention to one another, you get this, an this has consequences,like no other thing in the world, that’s called Separation, I just love this movie, two people having a strollon a Sunday afternoon re-living their lives but you wouldn’t know it, it’s like an underlining of guilt,that no one wants to admit to, best of-all I love about the movie no sex no murder, Nada. nothing like that,Run Time 106 Min.5.1 Surround in English, French an Italian,with English subtitles,1.85:1 Aspect Ratio.“Certified Copy” Is Gloriously Good...