Certified Copy ****

Director: Abbas Kiarostami,
Cast: Juliette Binoche, William Shimell
Jean-Claude Carrière, Agathe Natanson
Gianna Giachetti, Adrian Moore

The entire world of ideas that lies behind Certified Copy is best summed up in its final shot - fear not, no spoilers ahead - just before the credits start rolling the camera fixes itself inside a hotel room, right in front of a window: a church's bell-tower erected outside, surrounded by other roofs. The window itself is surrounded by an alluring darkness which perfectly frames the external landscape. For what seems to be a split second we wonder if we are watching a hanging picture or real life. Then again, what is "real life" within a motion picture?
Based on the idea that the entire world might as well consist of a series of copies of absolutely everything, Abbas Kiarostami delivers a cerebral movie that also happens to be ravishingly romantic.
The film opens during a lecture given by art historian James Miller (Shimell) who's written a book called "Certified Copy" in which he ponders if the reproduction of an art piece has any intrinsic value or is this worth exclusive to the "original". A woman (Binoche) leaves the lecture early to have a meal with her son (Moore) but meets Miller the following day to have him sign the six copies of the book she bought.
They end up spending the rest of the day together, discussing art, relationships, language and well, life in general.
Along the way there is a twist of sorts but to linger on it would be a disservice to a movie that feels almost dreamlike in its structure.
The movie seems to operate on two different levels, on one part we have the relationship between the lead characters. Since we never know the woman's name, she could easily embody anyone (even us) and her chemistry with James is fascinating.
You could spend the entire day following them around and never get bored with their musings. The film makes it so easy for us to intrude in their conversation that at no time do we feel like we're eavesdropping. During one point even, the woman looks straight into the camera and waves, as if she's aiming at us. The movie invites us to be part of the central dialogue, it expects us to have an opinion, even if the characters never seem to agree on whether opinions are worth anyone's time.
That the film is both elitist and approachable is an achievement in itself and perhaps a lot is owed to the delicious performances given by Binoche and Shimell. Opera singer Shimell debuts onscreen with an electric performance, making James an intellectual we'd actually want to listen to and nobody out there lights up the screen with the effortlessness of Binoche.
All of her moves contain such grace that she might be talking about the weather and we'd still be fascinated by her. The fact that she doesn't talk about peculiarly superficial topics makes her beyond alluring, like one of the art pieces mentioned throughout the film.
Even if in a way, she's merely playing a symbol, Binoche fills this woman with such warmth that we find ourselves staring at the eternal battle between heart and intellect.
Because regardless of how entertaining the film is, it's an unquestionably intellectual movie, which dares the audience to participate in its game. "We are only the DNA replicas of our ancestors" establishes Miller, as Kiarostami rejoices in displaying repetition (during the first sequence the same joke is repeated within five minutes, Miller tells a joke about the simplicity of repetition, the woman buys six books etc...)
The film is filled with clues about a puzzle we're probably not even supposed to be solving. It makes for such pleasurable viewing that you don't want to enter its world of ideas right there and then, you want it to let it wrap around you with its strictly carnal pleasures.
"It'd be stupid of us to ruin our lives for an ideal" says a wise café owner (Giachetti) during one of the film's greatest scenes and she might as well be referring to the experience of watching the movie. Of course, afterwards you can't seem to get the film's concepts out of your head. What is Kiarostami saying about life? About art? "Art is not an easy subject to write about" says Miller, aiming towards the film's elusive center. In the end you have to wonder if Kiarostami had something specific to say or is this a stream of consciousness essay. For proof of how the movie stimulates the brain, here's a question: considering you're watching the movie on home media or a theater and that these are themselves copies of a first print, does the film's value diminish? Even in case you're watching it for the second or third time, does each viewing add any value to it?  Certified Copy invites you to explore art and cinema in particular as a window to the soul and in the process will make you wonder what are souls even made of. Instead of feeling frustrating in its constant wondering about the world, it makes you feel that food for thought rarely feels this pleasurable.

Sweet HD Tooth.

Y'all remember Chocolat? That cute little movie people grew to hate because it got a Best Picture Oscar nomination? Which also kept me all confused throughout the entire awards season because Juliette Binoche and Julia Roberts were nominated for Best Actress and their smiles were so similar! Julia kept all demure in the tiny boxes, saving that toothy hole until she won the Oscar. Anyway, the movie came out on Blu-ray and I reviewed it for PopMatters, so go check that out.

Sheet-y Saturday

Where we take a look at posters for upcoming features.

The poster for The Son of No One tells you nothing about the movie but boy is this a nice picture of Channing Tatum.

And is it me or does the inclusion with Katie Holmes, along with Juliette Binoche and Al Pacino in the cast, sound like Tom Cruise bought her a part in the movie?

Gregg Araki is by no means subdued and the poster for his new film Ka-Boom confirms it. But I think this is the first time I've ever read the word "horny" quoted and included in a blurb.

Any of these sound appealing to you?

Palme Closet Case.

It's normal to hear film snobs utter complete disdain for the Academy Awards and gloat about how the latest Palm d'Or winner is the greatest thing since bread came sliced.
But with the recent edition of the Cannes film festival, and its winners, I wondered just how different these two awards truly are.
Sure, the cinema awarded in Cannes is usually more avant garde, innovative even, compared to the array of biopics, family dramas and bloated epics Oscar favors, but the principle behind how these awards are selected might not be as far from Hollywood as the Croisette likes to think.

Each year when we hear both the Oscar nominations and Cannes festival lineup, we realize that it's the same names being called over and over.
Oscar is infatuated with Clint Eastwood, Meryl Streep, Steven Spielberg and Ron Howard. Cannes favors Ken Loach, Wong Kar Wai, Pedro Almodóvar, Emir Kusturica and yes Clint Eastwood.
This year alone Loach's new film was extraordinarily included in the official selection a mere days before the festival began.

This begs us to wonder who exactly is choosing these movies. Supposedly submitting a film into the festival is an equal opportunity for everyone (if not why to suggest it with an easy to access link in the official site?) but how will the latest film from John Doe in Mexico fare against the latest work from festival darling Andrea Arnold (Cannes' Stephen Daldry perhaps with all her films winning something)?
Sure, it can be said that Carlos Reygadas' career, for example, was built entire upon festival submissions but once he became an established member of the auteur class, is his "newbie" spot available for someone to take?

To examine this further, let's take a look at the last five Palm d'Or winners.

2010-Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives
2009-The White Ribbon
2008-The Class
2007-4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days
2006-The Wind That Shakes the Barkey

Out of these five, three could very well be compared to Oscar rewarding A Beautiful Mind, Million Dollar Baby and The Departed during the last decade.
As in how two of these were the eventual coronation of someone who had this award coming all along and one was the first big win for someone who was denied the top prize out of random reasons.

Apichatpong Weerasethakul's Palm d'Or triumph wasn't in the least surprising, not only because the reviews were quite good but also because since his first entry with Blissfully Yours in 2002, the young director has been escalating towards the big award.
He had movies in the official competition in 02, 04 and was a jury member in 2008. His presence in the festival is the equivalent of Tom Hanks' position within AMPAS (although it's obvious who has more artistic merits in world cinema).

When Michael Haneke finally won the Palm d'Or in 2009, it could be said that he had finally hit all the right buttons for the festival stars to align in his favor.
His first festival entry was in 1997 with the controversial Funny Games, after which came Code Unknown in 2000 (Ecumenical Prize of the jury), La Pianiste in 2001 (Grand Prize and acting awards), Caché in 2005 (Best Director award) all finally culminating with the big win four years later.
Don't get me wrong, I love Haneke (I named The White Ribbon best film of 09 as well) but the point I'm trying to make is that it might not be that necessary to nominate or award him for everything he does.

Same happened to Ken Loach who won the Palm in 2006 after having a dozen films in competition from 1981 to 2010. Can he then be the Scorsese of the Croisette?

Sure, 2008 and 2007 would prove my theories wrong, considering how both were practically surprise winners coming from literal unknowns, but you need not but take a look at those individual year's lineups to see that they were comprised of the same people.
2007 alone had films by previous winners Fatih Akin, Quentin Tarantino, Gus van Sant, Emir Kusturica and Carlos Reygadas.

Of course this also invites us to explore the relationship that exists within both events which are arguably considered the most important film awards in the world. In 2007 for example, No Country for Old Men by Cannes' darlings Joel and Ethan Coen left the festival without a single award but only because people knew it didn't need an extra hand to earn a load of awards later (same with Mike Leigh this year?).

And this is concentrating merely in the top prizes (matters like box office and distribution would require a piece of their own). This year alone we saw films by previous Best Director winner Alejandro González Iñarritu (2006 for Babel) and Palm d'Or winner Abbas Kiarostami, receive acting awards.
Is Cannes showing signs of nepotism?

When you take into consideration the fact that jury members change every year and festival history might not have a lot to do with how they decide to vote each year, everything I said might prove to be a moot point.
But can there be that much coincidence?

I would agree too that watching the new Audiard go head to head with the new Almodóvar might be much more appealing than yet another Clint vs. Marty showdown, but isn't traditionalism, whether avant garde or commercial, quite boring in essence?

Is Cannes just Oscar with a classier outfit?

Cannes Palmares 2010.

The winners are:

Palme d'Or
Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives directed by Apichatpong Weerasethakul

Grand Prix
Of Gods and Men directed by Xavier Beauvois

Best Director
Mathieu Amalric for Tournée

Best Screenplay
Lee Chang-dong for Poetry

Best Actress
Juliette Binoche for Copie Conforme

Best Actor (tie)
Javier Bardem for Biutiful

Elio Germano for La Nostra Vita

Jury Prize
A Screaming Man directed by Mahamat-Saleh Haroun

Summer Hours ***1/2

Director: Olivier Assayas,
Cast: Juliette Binoche, Charles Berling, Jérémie Renier
Edith Scob, Isabelle Sadoyan, Valérie Bonneton, Dominique Reymond
Kyle Eastwood, Alice de Lencquesaing, Emile Berling

By its definition a museum is a place where objects of permanent value are preserved and displayed, but how we deem something valuable and museum worthy is the nature of Olivier Assayas' touching exploration.
"Summer Hours" starts during the celebration of Hélène's (Scob) 75th birthday, she doesn't look a day past fifty but is contemplating what will happen once she's dead.
She inherited a country house from her uncle-a famous painter-who filled the place with invaluable art pieces and furniture.
Hélène lives alone except for her maid Éloïse (Sadoyan) and takes advantage of her birthday celebration to talk serious matter with her children.
Jérémie (Renier) the youngest, lives with his wife (Bonneton) in China, the middle one, Adrienne (Binoche) is an artist who lives in New York with her boyfriend (Eastwood).
Only Frédéric (Berling) the eldest remains in France and is supposed to take care of the estate after his mother's demise.
The three of them spend the celebration ignoring her wishes, out of children's fear of their parents' death or in a rush to get back to their lives, and leave reassuring themselves their mom will live forever.
She obviously doesn't and after she passes way they must return to take charge of the estate.
The second in a series of films commissioned by the Musée d'Orsay, "Summer Hours" then takes a turn as the children decide to get rid of the collection to aid themselves financially.
With a plot meant for melodrama (should they sell their childhood memories?) Assayas crafts a lovely meditation on life that doesn't involve a single false move.
Hélène's death is treated in the most unceremonious of ways (making us wonder if she felt like a museum piece herself) and the subsequent meetings with museum officers and lawyers are treated like adult transactions.
The issues are never reduced to arbitrary tantrums and unnecessary dramas, Assayas treats us like the characters treat each other. For some their decisions might seem heartless and rushed, while others will identify with the painfulness of growing up portrayed so unaffectingly by the great actors.
Throughout the film we observe how they each appraise their own lives. For Adrienne her mother's objects are weighed down by the past while Éloïse sees them as souvenirs of a life well lived. In the film's most touching moment she fills a vase with flowers and places it on her employer's desk.
"Empty vases were like death to her" she says, ignoring the fact that, minutes before, said vase was discovered to be a priceless piece by a famous artist.
This may be the whole point of Assayas film; is art valued because of the memories and personal experiences we put to it or is it some sort of sacred concept defined by abstract concepts?
Once we're dead, and even when we're living, our memories can't be displayed in museums, but their value to us can be as worthy as a million dollar antique we might own.
"Summer Hours" invites us to spend a little more time contemplating the pieces next time we're in a museum, at one time those too belonged to someone who imprinted them with memories.
But we must also treat those at home as if they were pieces of invaluable art.

Flight of the Red Balloon ***

Director: Hou Hsiao-hsien
Cast: Juliette Binoche
Simon Iteanu, Fang Song, Hippolyte Girardot
Louise Margolin, Anna Sigalevitch

Meditating on who art belongs to once it's released, director Hou Hsiao-hsien reworks Albert Lamorisse's beloved "The Red Balloon" to deliver an enchanting tale set in modern day Paris.
Juliette Binoche plays Suzanne, a single mother who hires Song (Song) a Chinese immigrant, and film student, to be her son Simon's (Iteanu) babysitter.
The film consists of vignettes where Simon is followed around the city by a big red balloon and those where he interacts with the adults in his life as they go through their routines.
Lamorisse's short film is a beautiful childhood fantasia tinged with melancholy and a weird sense of happiness, Hsiao-Hsien uses this to his advantage and gives his film a sense of desolation.
While he doesn't concentrate on Simon specifically, it's through his character where we perceive the loneliness felt by all of them.
Suzanne is always working or dealing with her problems, Song still feels she doesn't belong in France and Simon seems to know he doesn't really need a sitter at his age, yet their isolation becomes their means of identification and community with each other.
The film at first feels like a sort of sociological experiment, as if the director was studying Western culture through its movies and through families, but even as the film grows more conscious cinematically, the actors become more comfortable with their characters and reach a point where it seems they weren't even being filmed.
Although there isn't much of a story to follow, the film makes it almost impossible for you to take your eyes off it, much of it is of course owed to cinematographer Pin Bing Lee, whose curious camera competes with the balloon itself as to places where it can go.
Despite the fact that the settings become almost limited to Suzanne's messy apartment, where all the characters interact, the camera captures pleasantly surprising moments that achieve beautiful and chaotic intimacy.
Everything about the film seems so lived in that eventually there is no need for a traditional advancement of the story; it's as if we were spending an evening with people we know.
Binoche gives one of her finest performances as the bleach blonde Suzanne, who enters and exits her apartment fully aware that this is her stage, unlike the puppet theater where she works.
A drama queen that confides her existential problems with anyone who will listen, it's her overbearing need to please her son (who she knows she neglects) what becomes beautiful to watch. Her character feels like she's lived within it forever.
Curiously, while the actors work hard to achieve absolute subtlety, Hsia-hsien does his best to remind us that we are watching a film.
With Song, who arguably becomes his alter ego going beyond race and nationality and relying on the "foreign"-ness of a filmmaker within this surrounding, he views cinema as childhood and a filmmaker as someone who plays with time and alters it so that it may be of use to others.
He doesn't merely hint at this with his lyrical use of memories, which come through unconventional flashbacks and even with films themselves.
During one scene Suzanne asks Song to convert some 8 mm films of her great-grand father into digital discs, when she sees the results Binoche's expression of wonder is similar to what we would expect from someone witnessing time travel.
After watching one of Song's films (which we never see) Suzanne says "your film touches on very deep things I thought I'd forgotten". The same can be said for Hsia-hsien's and perhaps the director in a way was saying the same to Lamorisse.
But things get to a more meta level when we learn that the film song is working on is no other than an interpretation of "The Red Balloon". She even goes as far as to reveal the effects she will use to make the balloon follow Simon.
After this, the film turns on an intellectual twist and we wonder who does this red balloon belong to after all?
Is it Song's or Simon's? Is it Hsia-hsien's? Is it Lamorisse's or is it ours'?
In the film's most beautiful moment Simon goes with his classmates to a museum, the Musée d'Orsay, where their teacher has them analyze a haunting paiting of a child following a red balloon.
The teacher invites them to see beyond the painting and when at one point one of the kids suggests that there are more children beyond the painting it finally hits us that like Suzanne says "grown ups are a bit complicated" and don't take the time to grasp at all the beauty surrounding them, or care to do so for that matter.
We later see the balloon making its way through the Paris skyline and everything makes sense.