Copies produced by the real and counterfeit real, the relationship between the two and their respective values, these are the issues that the well-known Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami tries to explore in the film "Legal Copies". Abbas's most well-known work is undoubtedly "The Taste of Cherry", which won Abbas the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 1997 and established Abbas's status in the international film industry.
"The Taste of Cherry" explores the meaning of life and death in a very serious way. At the end of the film, the director inserted his own picture and said disappointing words like "this is just a movie". However, this seemingly meaningless ending segment expresses Abbas' belief in the narrative text of the film: what the film presents is pure fantasy, and what the audience sees in it is only a copy of reality, a reality. a copy of .
From this point of view, "Legal Copy" can be said to be a re-explanation and re-elaboration of the abrupt ending of "The Taste of Cherry". "Legal Copy" is performed by the French actress Juliette Binoche, who won the Best Actress Award at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival for this film, thus completing the posthumous record of the world's four major film festivals (Cannes, Berlin, Venice and Oscar). Although "Legal Copies" continues the ending of "The Taste of Cherry" in terms of issues, and also achieved some success at the Cannes Film Festival, the film's approach is completely different from "The Taste of Cherry".
Abbas's work has always been serious, even obscure, but "Legal Copies" is a brightly colored romantic comedy, in which the hero and heroine wander the streets of Tuscany, Italy, visiting various works of art together and encountering various The two people continued to have a dialogue about love during the journey, and the topic of the film was brought out in the dialogue of each sentence, which is why the film was also translated as "Dialogue of Love".
In terms of form, "Legal Copy" is very similar to the love sketch "Before the Sunrise", in which a man and a woman get to know each other and develop love through conversation during a few hours of city sightseeing. However, the story direction of "Legal Copy" wanders between reality and fantasy, and adopts the postmodernist narrative technique of meta-scenario. The director uses weird plot development, mirror images and a lot of looking directly at the camera to remind the fact that reality and fantasy coexist, and remind the audience of the importance of themselves as "viewers".
■In the film, the male protagonist is a British writer who has just published a book to discuss the value of reproductions of artworks. He said in the book that the value of artworks depends on the audience's emotions and associations. If a reproduction can Arouse the same emotion and association, then the value of this replica is no less than the real one. In order to promote this special book, the male protagonist went to Tuscany, Italy, to participate in the new book presentation, where he met the female protagonist.
The heroine is a single French mother who relocated to Italy with her son five years ago to run a small art shop for a living. The heroine bought the hero's new book on the recommendation of her sister. Although the heroine did not fully agree with the views in the book, she went to the new book launch in person, hoping that the hero would sign the book she bought. However, because of her son's interference, the heroine left early not long after the presentation, but left the address of her small shop and invited the hero to visit her.
Like most postmodern works, The Legal Copy can be interpreted and understood in many different ways, depending on the choice of the audience. The actor later went to visit the heroine. He had to go to the train station to leave at 9 o'clock in the evening, but before that time, he let the heroine lead him to visit nearby. Due to the lack of the heroine's name in the film and the director's presentation of the heroine's figure in the form of mirror images several times, the film can be understood as a memory, fantasy, or a real experience of the hero.
On the way, the heroine mentioned her unrealistic sister and the child who lacked a sense of responsibility, but the hero agreed with them and envied them for simply believing in simplicity, living life according to her own feelings and ignoring reality. and the shackles of external values. Although the male protagonist has written a special book explaining that people's subjective feelings are more important than external reality, and that the real and fake products are of equal value, he does not fully believe in this claim, and he still struggles with what the external world gives people. value standard.
This contradictory mood of the male protagonist is particularly prominent on the issue of love. The two met the female owner of the coffee shop, the newlyweds who took wedding photos, and an elderly couple who visited the place. Either an active misunderstanding or a deliberate joke made by the heroine, these people all identify the hero and heroine. It is a couple who have been married for many years. The female boss advises the heroine on the secrets of getting along with the husband and wife. The new couple invites the two of them to take pictures together. The husband of the elderly couple provides the hero with the secret to treating his wife, saying that he only needs to gently put his hand on the wife. On the shoulders of the wife, the two can quell the dispute.
For these encounters, the heroine finds it very interesting, and thinks that the beauty of the moment is the whole point. However, the hero is not so happy. The happy scene in front of him only makes him think that the relationship is destined to be weak and the marriage will eventually break down. Even so, when the male protagonist entered the restaurant with the female protagonist for dinner, he quietly put his hand on her shoulder. As a result, as soon as the female protagonist entered the restaurant, he hid in the toilet and put on makeup and two large earrings. A shoulder-shouldering action brought the two into another world.
After the female protagonist came out of the toilet after dressing up, she found that the male protagonist was angry because of his hunger, the poor quality of the wine, and the bad attitude of the waiter. This also affected the heroine's mood. She first blamed the other party for not being able to see her well-dressed appearance, and then blamed the hero for falling asleep on the 15th anniversary of their marriage last night. As a result, the male protagonist also lost his temper, mentioned the old affairs between the two, and complained that the other party did not understand how busy he was at work, and would only selfishly ask for this and that. The male protagonist even walked away later.
The two later reconciled, and the heroine found the hero outside the door. He was moved by the two pieces of bread she asked for. The two turned around and went to a hotel. The heroine told the front desk that she and her husband spent their honeymoon here fifteen years ago, and now hope to go to the original room to review the past. The front desk gave them the keys without hesitation and let them go upstairs to the room by themselves. After entering the room, the heroine lay down on the bed and talked about that she always remembered the scene of the hero lying beside her at that time, and all the sweet memories seemed to come back to the two of them. The heroine also asked the hero to stay and not leave.
The male protagonist reluctantly said that he had to get to the train station before 9 o'clock, and then got up and went to the bathroom to wash up. Facing the camera, the male protagonist smoothed his hair with water in a trance, then turned and walked away, only to see two church bells not far from the bathroom window swaying continuously, and the bells reverberated.
■ Is all this real or unreal? Memories or dreams? Even if the "Mona Lisa's Smile" is always a fake, the ambiguity in the painting will still attract our attention; even if the "Symphony of Destiny" is not Beethoven's work, the four amazing knocks on the door will still shake us. Even if "The Theory of Relativity" is just a random thought of Einstein, the profound and broadness of the discussion will still change our vision; even if Lin Daiyu doesn't really love Jia Baoyu in "A Dream of Red Mansions", but she repays it with tears of her life The oath of companionship still touches our hearts. It is our moving that gives these things meaning and value, not the essence of true and false. As long as it can hit people's hearts, the copy is as good as the original!
As a director, Abbas used the film "Legal Copies" to answer the questions he left at the end of "The Taste of a Cherry." In "Legal Copy", are the hero and heroine two strangers, or two couples who have been married for more than fifteen years? Are the two of them the originals of each other's lives, or just copies of their respective fantasies in a brief encounter? Don't ask the director, but ask the audience's own heart, as long as the part that touches you and touches you is true, because if it can't touch people's hearts, even if it is the original, its value is only equal to the inferior copy, but if it can touch people's hearts, Even if it is a copy, the value is equivalent to a fine original. Movies are just copies of reality, however, the value of a good movie is as precious as real life.
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