151 replies to this topic

[M. Leary]

Perfect. Perfect. Your next viewing with her will itself be a certified copy.

[Nathan Douglas]

That's too bad, Ryan. Do see it in a theatre if you can. I can't imagine how diminished a first-time viewing would be on DVD.

[Persona]

Ryan H., on 16 April 2011 - 06:37 PM, said:

My wife saw THE CERTIFIED COPY without me (sadly), and she liked it a good deal. However, the fact that she has seen it already means that I will be waiting for the DVD release.

First of all, Super-Lame, dude. Don't do it that way. Get up, go, do it do it do it.

Second, quit using the word "THE" in the title. Thread title has been wrong for quite some time.

Eeh, might as well say, thirdly: Filmsweep Reaction.

OK, OK, can't stop me now. Fourth:

DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE FILM

Spoiler

I am not convinced these two are married. This is a fun, artsy film. FEELS like Last Year in Marienbad or something. I guess that is the easiest reading, but I don't think it's the only one.

Edited by Persona, 16 April 2011 - 09:50 PM.

[Ryan H.]

Persona, on 16 April 2011 - 09:50 PM, said:

First of all, Super-Lame, dude. Don't do it that way. Get up, go, do it do it do it.

If it comes closer to me--ala the nearby Bryn Mawr Film Institute--I'll check it out there (I've been hoping for OF GODS AND MEN to make it there, too). But it's not likely that I'll drag my butt into downtown Philadelphia, where I'll pay $13+ for parking, just so I can see this film on the big screen.

[Darrel Manson]

Persona, on 16 April 2011 - 09:50 PM, said:

OK, OK, can't stop me now. Fourth:

DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE FILM

Spoiler

I am not convinced these two are married. This is a fun, artsy film. FEELS like Last Year in Marienbad or something. I guess that is the easiest reading, but I don't think it's the only one.

Yeah, it's why multiple viewings for this is so exciting - to challenge how you interpreted things in earlier viewings.

[Christian]

Saw it. Very good. Can't wait to dig deeper into the links in this thread.

As for the church stuff, which is thrilling, I have to ask: Could the church simply represent for the filmmaker an idea of marital stability? The two protagonists at one point watch an older couple emerge from church, and they look at them longingly. That's who they want to be, right? And somehow the church has helped that older couple stay together over the years. But the spiritual connections were a bit elusive, I thought. I wondered what Kiaroastami was going for. I know what I wanted him to be saying. I'm just not sure that's what he intended to say.

I don't know what this means, but as great as the dialogue between the two main characters was, my favorite scenes in the film were those that included others: the female shopkeeper early in the film, and then the other couple, the one with the man who offers the husband some "fatherly advice."

Further thoughts, maybe, after I've thought on the film some more. Thanks to everyone for recommending this one.

Edited by Christian, 04 May 2011 - 05:04 AM.

[Persona]

Darrel Manson, on 17 April 2011 - 09:39 AM, said:

Persona, on 16 April 2011 - 09:50 PM, said:

OK, OK, can't stop me now. Fourth:

DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE FILM

Spoiler

I am not convinced these two are married. This is a fun, artsy film. FEELS like Last Year in Marienbad or something. I guess that is the easiest reading, but I don't think it's the only one.

Yeah, it's why multiple viewings for this is so exciting - to challenge how you interpreted things in earlier viewings.

Darrel (or anyone), do you have an opinion on my question?

[Christian]

Stef, I thought of the same film while watching The Certified Copy. But maybe that's because you'd implanted the thought in my subconsious during an earlier read of this thread?

[Persona]

I had it in spoilers. Your fault!

And is the title of this film The Certified Copy or Certified Copy. I thought the title showed no "The," and IMDB has it listed as such.

[Darrel Manson]

Persona, on 04 May 2011 - 07:54 AM, said:

Darrel Manson, on 17 April 2011 - 09:39 AM, said:

Persona, on 16 April 2011 - 09:50 PM, said:

OK, OK, can't stop me now. Fourth:

DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE FILM

Spoiler

I am not convinced these two are married. This is a fun, artsy film. FEELS like Last Year in Marienbad or something. I guess that is the easiest reading, but I don't think it's the only one.

Yeah, it's why multiple viewings for this is so exciting - to challenge how you interpreted things in earlier viewings.

Darrel (or anyone), do you have an opinion on my question?

My reading was the same as yours. However, if Ebert Presents At the Movies has a nice debater between Christy and Ignaty over that point. Christy reads it our way, Ignaty the other.

[Christian]

Persona, on 15 April 2011 - 08:28 PM, said:

Wow! What a knockout film. So glad I waited for the theater and didn't get it ON DEMAND. I figured with Kiarostami's first film as a foreigner it might be worth the wait, that the visuals would be done with better, western funding. And I think it showed. I have no proof about the financing and whether that went like I thought it out, but the visuals here are the best he's done. Some of it simply because he's in Italy. Some of it because he is a master filmmaker.

Yeah, the look of this film was very surprising to me. Perhaps I need to see more Iranian cinema, but nothing I've seen from that country, including early Kiarostami films, prepared me for the simple beauty of this film. The locations had something to do with that, no doubt, but I'll be curious to read more about who the director worked with on this film (DP, primarily).

Quote

I went into this having only read this thread (without the spoilers) and thinking, "Oh boy, here we go again, I'm gonna hate it and probably won't even post." Not this film. Give me this over Linklater's Before whatevers any day of the week -- and I actually (mostly) like both of those films.

I thought of both those films as well, and I share your "give me this" preference, without sharing your admiration for the Linklater films, which I wanted to like but didn't.

Quote

Binoche takes it, yet again, to another level. The James Miller guy -- eeh, not so much. But Binoche carries his weaknesses, she makes up for him everywhere they go. And in the end, in that final scene, he makes up for a quite a few of his earlier, less convincing rants.

Glad you brought up the guy. Binoche is marvelous -- I didn't think it would be possible, but she's getting better with every movie I see her in -- but the fella is ... well, he's debonair, distinguished, just right for the part ... until he gets angry with Binoche's character. Those flashes of anger made him look ... goofy. I wonder if this is because so many of the shots of the actor were in profile, but when he attacks Binoche's character, he's filmed straight on. Something about the guy looked silly to me, just when I was supposed to be buying into his outrage. Not what the filmmaker had in mind, no doubt, but I was wondering if that's just a personal tic of mine. I like what he says in those scenes, but found myself very aware that I was watching an actor, not just a character, in those moments. That was my main drawback with the film, although it doesn't change my strongly favorable opinion of Certified (no "The") Copy.

[Persona]

Christian, on 04 May 2011 - 11:38 AM, said:

Those flashes of anger made him look ... goofy.

Exactomendo.

[M. Leary]

Christian, on 04 May 2011 - 05:03 AM, said:

As for the church stuff, which is thrilling, I have to ask: Could the church simply represent for the filmmaker an idea of marital stability?

This is an interesting question to tease out, as the director is Iranian. It kind of startled me that he used a church so symbolically at a key moment in the film.

Christian, on 04 May 2011 - 11:38 AM, said:

The James Miller guy -- eeh, not so much. But Binoche carries his weaknesses, she makes up for him everywhere they go. And in the end, in that final scene, he makes up for a quite a few of his earlier, less convincing rants.

I can kind of see this, but I am fully aware that I look goofy and stupid when I am angry. I felt very uncomfortable during his rants, and I think that was a fitting thing to feel.

Marriage Question:

As far as the marriage question is concerned, I don't think it matters. They were married and they weren't married. They used to know each other and they never knew each other. I am looking forward to teasing this out in a review, but I think it is important to let that ambiguity oscillate throughout the film. People compare the film to the Before Sunrise/Before Sunset films, but I think that is mistaken. Whereas those are films about a relationship with a backstory that is mediated by conversation, CC is about something far more fundamental, universal, and abstract. The idea that we can't tell whether or not this couple has a real backstory is a wise expression of the way we actually feel in relationships, and the fact that we can feel the fear of feeling unknown and unloved even by someone we have been married to for decades. The narrative oscillation in CC obtains in our actual experience of love itself.

And all this really culminates in the much discussed bra removal, through which Kiarostami reminds us what is at stake in this film: the possibility of intimacy.

Edited by M. Leary, 04 May 2011 - 12:42 PM.

[Darren H]

Well said, M. I wasn't joking a few months ago when I nominated Eyes Wide Shut for the horror films list. To me, it explores some of these same ambiguities but ends in existential despair. But maybe that's just me.

[Ryan H.]

Darren H, on 04 May 2011 - 12:57 PM, said:

Well said, M. I wasn't joking a few months ago when I nominated Eyes Wide Shut for the horror films list. To me, it explores some of these same ambiguities but ends in existential despair. But maybe that's just me.

I'm still waiting on that EYES WIDE SHUT essay.

Personally, I'd say EYES WIDE SHUT ends with an existential quandary that is fraught with all kinds of difficulties, but I wouldn't describe it as out-and-out "despair." And, while I don't think authorial intent is everything, I think there's good evidence from the development of the film that Kubrick wasn't aiming for a despairing conclusion, either.

[M. Leary]

Darren H, on 04 May 2011 - 12:57 PM, said:

Well said, M. I wasn't joking a few months ago when I nominated Eyes Wide Shut for the horror films list. To me, it explores some of these same ambiguities but ends in existential despair. But maybe that's just me.

Ah. I wasn't quite catching onto your angle in that thread, and now it makes sense. I can understand why Ryan interprets that ending from a different direction, but the last line of the film has always haunted me as a statement of utter nihilism.

[Darren H]

Ryan, if you can wade through the pedantry of my grad school essay, it gets at my main points.

[Ryan H.]

Darren H, on 04 May 2011 - 01:37 PM, said:

Ryan, if you can wade through the pedantry of my grad school essay, it gets at my main points.

Neat. Mind if I take that over to the EYES WIDE SHUT thread?

[Darren H]

Take it wherever you want.

At the risk of sidetracking this thread, though, I'll say that Eyes Wide Shut is to me an almost inexhaustible text about personhood and the performance of relationships. It really is an interesting funhouse mirror reflection of Certified Copy. I know that intimacy exists -- I've been sharing a bed with my best friend for more than 15 years now -- but I'm almost afraid to put our relationship under intense scrutiny, because I truly believe that I'll never fully know Joanna, that she'll always be a construction of my own perception and imagination. That doesn't negate the importance and transcendent beauty of our intimacy, though (despite what Kubrick would have us believe).

[J.A.A. Purves]

Persona, on 16 April 2011 - 09:50 PM, said:

DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE FILM

Spoiler

I am not convinced these two are married. This is a fun, artsy film. FEELS like Last Year in Marienbad or something. I guess that is the easiest reading, but I don't think it's the only one.

I agree.

My review.