Check Out the Trailer

Director Abbas Kiarostami (TASTE OF CHERRY) begins his film with an intellectual debate about art and its representation of real life. Then he switches the debate to how it would apply to real life. This might sound too esoteric but Kiarostami wraps it around two compelling characters and the romantic subtext that it conjures. And then there is the twist that makes us question what is going on at all.

James Miller (opera singer William Shimell) is a scholar who has written a new book arguing that a copy of an original piece of art has just as much value as the original because it makes us appreciate the original. Elle (Juliette Binoche, THE ENGLISH PATIENT), an antiques dealer, thinks the argument is interesting, but flawed. James defends his argument by asking whether the awe of a child gazing on the beauty of a copy of the Mona Lisa is any less authentic because it is not the original. He believes that the point of life is to enjoy it in whatever way you want even if someone else might believe it is not right. Elle believes this is good for philosophy but doesn’t apply to reality.

Read the rest of this entry »