Published: 02 September 2010
by DAN CARRIER

ACCLAIMED Iranian film director Abbas Kiarostami rests his lens on northern Italy in this strange and slow-moving tale that develops into a love story of sorts. 

He has made more than 40 well-received films in his native country but this is the first time he has set and shot one abroad. He captures Tuscany in a glorious light but while nice to gaze at, like an Italian landscape, the pace and occasionally unbelievable relationship between the two leads mean drawn-out scenes drag painfully. 

Opera singer William Shimell, in his first screen role, plays a British writer who is virtually unknown in his native country but can pull a crowd in Tuscany. It is left open for the viewer to decide why he has failed in Blighty: is this British snobbishness, Philistinism, or simply UK intellectuals not willing to have the wool pulled over their eyes by a donnishly dressed and well-spoken art critic who spouts rubbish? His latest tome is on art and copies, fakes and falsehoods; he argues that copying the Old Masters is an act of artistic creation in itself, and originality doesn’t really matter if the end product is nice to look at. 

He is gives a reading on this topic, attended by an art gallery and antique dealer (Juliette Binoche), who we ­discover has a crush on him. The pair arrange to meet and spend the day together, and during this tour of pretty places to use as locations, a tussle of wills and enlightening takes place. 

They are mistaken for a long-married couple, a mistake which at first they jokingly accept and then add to – they ­pretend they are having trouble keeping their relationship going, as if 20 years of marriage has been squished into just one day. 

Both leads are competent. Binoche scooped best actress at Cannes for this work, while Shimell turns in a believable performance of a middle-class bore.  Binoche is much more detached here than in films such as An ­English Patient or Chocolat. At times she looks as if she needs shaking, so slow-witted is her character. Tuscany looks marvellous, of course. Cool cafés with gnarled Italians sipping coffees, clattering cobblestones and window boxes abound. 

In many scenes the backdrop of gentle hills, cypress trees and olive groves capture the ­attention more than the cast in the foreground. Binoche seems to spend an inordinate amount of time framed by Renaissance archways and sandwiched between classical columns, peeking behind iron-studded doorways and warmed by the glow of the heat-soaked stones. 

At times the pace of the film is irritating and the couple want their heads banging together. It is hard to feel ­empathy for them both, ultimately meaning you don’t particularly care if they walk off into the wonderfully framed ­sunset at the end.