Certified Copy (2010)

Shot in Tuscany, Italy with a European-Iranian film crew, and starring Juliet Binoche of French cinema, this film offers a faded copy of modernist European films of the 1950s. In particular, it reminds cinephiles of Renzo Rossellini’s 1954 Voyage to Italy that starred Ingrid Bergman, who was comparable to Binoche’s popularity and aesthetic appeal in the 1950s European cinema. With Certified Copy, Kiarostami officially entered the domain of filmmakers without borders. He showed that his universal themes such as tensions in gender relations, male-female misunderstandings, romance and aging, and the meditative state of a traveller in search of reality could produce masterpieces in settings outside of his native country. One of the most important themes that is rehearsed in this film is the concept of originality vs. copying.