I think this is “Mulholland Drive” crossed with “In the Mood for Love”

Copie Conforme

If there was a movie that I’d call “meta”, it’d be this one. The concepts of the film go beyond the borders, like a picture which is drawn out of its frame. (I want such a painting on my wall one day.) The film is just so much at the same time, similarly to “Close-Up” – the film talks about original art and its copy, about authenticity in a relationship and the question about which one is the copy, and finally the film is largely a “copy” of love films like “Before Sunrise”, or any of the other talkative French relationship dramas. On top of all of that, I recommended the film to the guy who comes closest to my experience with something like “Before Sunrise” and a crucial element of the discussion between the couple has practically happened to me when talking about the film. If this isn’t meta, what is?

Speaking of “Before Sunrise”, Gorp said the film was a mix of “Before Sunrise” and “Inception”, probably because it is a dialogue-heavy film focused on two characters talking to each other and at the same time, you never quite know what is real and what is not. But when I saw the film, “Mulholland Drive” came to mind because the two realities clash exactly in the middle of the film. There is a clear cut between the first part in which they appear to be strangers and the second part in which they appear to be a married couple. They almost do not transition from one extreme to the other at all, in fact the conversation with the waitress almost parallels the blue cube. The other one, “In the Mood for Love” feels almost obvious to me. Both “In the Mood for Love” and “Copie conforme” are about a love which, in some sense, cannot be achieved, in both cases couples role-play make-believe dialogue, and both films are heavily focused both on dialogue as well as on the facial expressions of the protagonists. This role-playing was precisely what fascinated me about “In the Mood for Love” and made it so special, and then here comes a movie which is entirely about make-believe dialogue. You can imagine how much I reveled in the film.

The internet is obviously full of people who didn’t get the film. Some say they are obviously strangers pretending to be a married couple, and some say the exact opposite. Somebody even brought up the idea that this stranger is a copy of the woman’s ex-husband (why would that be the case huh?) For me, the imagination that they could be something like both or, much more interestingly, neither, is much more interesting. Some Imdb person interpreted their relationship as the one of a married man and his mistress, and with that in mind, the film becomes even more painful. Although, a mistress has no right to complain about her man never being present, but even that could be explained. You could say that their role-playing allows them to say things which they cannot in the situation they are. As strangers, he can converse on a different level of politeness and perhaps even seduce her in a different way; and as a married couple, she can make all these complaints which you cannot as a mistress, and more importantly, she can treat the topic of her son in a way that puts her on equal level with the man.

It also doesn’t happen very often that a film is so casually and pleasantly trilingual. I love how the film starts with the two of them speaking English and throughout the film it is revealed that he also speaks both French and Italian. This is especially beautiful in the context of such (rather vapid) relationship talks, because it reminds me of how Loris and I switched to French when we were frustrated about the ongoing, never-ending conversation we had.
Gosh I *want* trilingual conversations now, ha ha ha. Loris should brush up his English.

Last time I heard of the film, Gorp said he wanted to re-watch it. Indeed, “Copie conform” has an incredible rewatching potential, and I too am seriously considering it. For me, even though I was so pleasantly surprised by “Close-up”, this is Kiarostami’s masterpiece.