If certifying an art piece as a copy means defining the authenticity of its original, watching Certified Copy means reviewing how much ideals, expectations, and fantasies about love you have projected to your life. What does your true self intrinsically need from love? And, how do time and life changes affect your perspective?
James the protagonist would rather challenge himself with one of the most difficult writing tasks, i.e. endorsing the originality of art work, than get engaged in the search for an authentic love. For marriage, he holds a pessimistically detached attitude, which is seen at different points in the film, and cannot be clearer when he refused to take a picture with the young couple at the popular wedding spot. For him, marriage is just a copy of an image of what people think love should ultimately lead to, but marriage is not exactly what love is meant to be. For him, love should be liberating (like the way that Cypress trees extend their branches); it cannot be maintained without adaptation to changes, including changes caused by the lapse of time, new responsibilities, career ambition, etc. His detachment towards Juliet Binoche (who played the nameless character, the woman who sometimes seems to be his wife and sometimes simply seems to be a book fan) may be an expression of his insistence on the originality of love.
Binoche is the opposite of James. She gives values to copies, even though she recognizes the superiority of originals. This is reflected in her antique shop, where both originals and copies are displayed and sold. While James shows contempt to Original Copy, she highly regards it. (Original Copy is the painting copy which was mistaken as the original for such a long time that it eventually got acknowledged as a valuable art work and displayed in the Tuscany museum). For her, love is an ideal but not without responsibilities. Marriage may be just an illusion of love, but it can be just as real and rewarding if you believe in it hard enough and work on it hard enough. Unfortunately, she is in love with someone who does not share the same value as her, someone who does not want his own liberal spirit to be inhibited by responsibilities, and someone who does not conform to the inferiority of copies.
The most intriguing part of the story is that you never know the relationship between James and Binoche. Obviously this is not a mystery to solve, but an idea to play with. You can see them as two people who newly met, but just play along after being mistaken as a couple. Both of them have demonstrated certain transference as the story goes, but Binoche was almost overtaken by it. Unintentionally, they projected their feelings towards their spouse onto each other. You can also see James as the constantly unavailable husband of Binoche, a man who needs to be free from obligations to enjoy life. It is interesting to note that, what seems to be confusing to viewers is plain and clear to the people around these two persons – they all see them as a couple, including the waitress, the new young couple at the church, the old couple by the fountain, and the inn keeper. For us viewers, the confusion did not start until after the conversation between the waitress and Binoche. From then on, James and Bionche started role playing or revealing their past. Either way, the process is punctuated by intense and emotional moments. It raised the questions of how we react to others' interpretation of us, what constitutes their interpretation, and how our reaction to the interpretation affects us in return. If one's identity is shaped by - or worse- caters to other's interpretation, how authentic can his life remain? How well are we aware of our true self? How much does awareness matter?
I love the way that the director uses the camera. At some points, the viewer feels like standing behind a two-way mirror watching the characters. At some points, the viewer feels like sitting in the position of James or Binoche, being looked right into the eyes and talked to. At some other points, the viewer feels like being in the position of the new couple, whom Binoche was waving at. The open ending is excellent. The question that is left to be answered is whether James took the train and left, or he stayed with Binoche.How to draw the line between the value of originality and the value of copies? Are you going to compromise? What is the standard for a "certified copy"? What are acceptable and not acceptable for an authentic love/life?
James the protagonist would rather challenge himself with one of the most difficult writing tasks, i.e. endorsing the originality of art work, than get engaged in the search for an authentic love. For marriage, he holds a pessimistically detached attitude, which is seen at different points in the film, and cannot be clearer when he refused to take a picture with the young couple at the popular wedding spot. For him, marriage is just a copy of an image of what people think love should ultimately lead to, but marriage is not exactly what love is meant to be. For him, love should be liberating (like the way that Cypress trees extend their branches); it cannot be maintained without adaptation to changes, including changes caused by the lapse of time, new responsibilities, career ambition, etc. His detachment towards Juliet Binoche (who played the nameless character, the woman who sometimes seems to be his wife and sometimes simply seems to be a book fan) may be an expression of his insistence on the originality of love.
Binoche is the opposite of James. She gives values to copies, even though she recognizes the superiority of originals. This is reflected in her antique shop, where both originals and copies are displayed and sold. While James shows contempt to Original Copy, she highly regards it. (Original Copy is the painting copy which was mistaken as the original for such a long time that it eventually got acknowledged as a valuable art work and displayed in the Tuscany museum). For her, love is an ideal but not without responsibilities. Marriage may be just an illusion of love, but it can be just as real and rewarding if you believe in it hard enough and work on it hard enough. Unfortunately, she is in love with someone who does not share the same value as her, someone who does not want his own liberal spirit to be inhibited by responsibilities, and someone who does not conform to the inferiority of copies.
The most intriguing part of the story is that you never know the relationship between James and Binoche. Obviously this is not a mystery to solve, but an idea to play with. You can see them as two people who newly met, but just play along after being mistaken as a couple. Both of them have demonstrated certain transference as the story goes, but Binoche was almost overtaken by it. Unintentionally, they projected their feelings towards their spouse onto each other. You can also see James as the constantly unavailable husband of Binoche, a man who needs to be free from obligations to enjoy life. It is interesting to note that, what seems to be confusing to viewers is plain and clear to the people around these two persons – they all see them as a couple, including the waitress, the new young couple at the church, the old couple by the fountain, and the inn keeper. For us viewers, the confusion did not start until after the conversation between the waitress and Binoche. From then on, James and Bionche started role playing or revealing their past. Either way, the process is punctuated by intense and emotional moments. It raised the questions of how we react to others' interpretation of us, what constitutes their interpretation, and how our reaction to the interpretation affects us in return. If one's identity is shaped by - or worse- caters to other's interpretation, how authentic can his life remain? How well are we aware of our true self? How much does awareness matter?
I love the way that the director uses the camera. At some points, the viewer feels like standing behind a two-way mirror watching the characters. At some points, the viewer feels like sitting in the position of James or Binoche, being looked right into the eyes and talked to. At some other points, the viewer feels like being in the position of the new couple, whom Binoche was waving at. The open ending is excellent. The question that is left to be answered is whether James took the train and left, or he stayed with Binoche.How to draw the line between the value of originality and the value of copies? Are you going to compromise? What is the standard for a "certified copy"? What are acceptable and not acceptable for an authentic love/life?