Movie Ramblings: "Once"

It's almost ridiculous how much the indie Irish film "Once" is made to appeal to people like Anne and me. It takes place in Ireland (where I studied one year, worked one summer, and proposed to Anne atop Europe's highest cliff). The main character is a guitar-playing busker who performs on Grafton Street (where I've done the same three or four times). The female protagonist (Marketa Irglova), like Anne, plays piano (though is rather shy about it). The movie is about love or music, depending on which one you believe is the conduit for the other. Oh, and the lead male, Glen Hansard, played the guitarist Outspan Foster in "The Commitments," one of the great underrated movies of all time, which we own.

Knowing most of this before we set foot in the Uptown Theater on Saturday night, I was ready for a letdown. In the film's first 10 minutes, I grew worried. In terms of production quality, "Once" is at least one rung below normal Uptown fare--akin, I suppose, to "The Brothers McMullen," but with even lower digital quality and audio difficulties exacerbated by the Irish and Czech accents.

But the film quickly redeemed itself. Once you accepted the lower-grade production (and to some extent, acting, since both characters are musicians first, actors second)--and the fact that it's structured more like a musical, with several full-length songs sung by the characters, it was truly a beautiful film. (Trailer below.)

Glen Hansard was interested in "Once" (written and directed by his former bandmate in The Frames, John Carney) because he was tired of every Irish film being about either The Troubles or the proverbial "man who won't sell his field." "Once" is modern. It confounds Irish stereotypes by not holding a single scene in a pub or a church. Only one character smokes. Dublin is a city of Eastern European and African immigrants (Ireland also has a growing Brazilian population, which apparently has greatly improved pub fare). Even shots of the Irish Sea are kept to a minimum, which only serves to make the scene in Howth, north of Dublin, even more powerful.

The movie also confounds virtually every convention of the Hollywood romance. I won't offer any spoilers. Suffice it to say that throughout the film, music is the medium of communication and intimacy. I realized only the next morning that the movie's seemingly missing love-making scene actually occurred when Hansard taught Irglova how to play one of his songs in a music store, and by the end they were soaring into harmonies on a gorgeous Frames song called "Falling Slowly." (There are many versions of this song on YouTube, but this one is worth the horrible camera work for Hansard's spoken intro.)

Given all this, I'm not sure if I can even be objective about "Once." All I know for sure is that despite its anti-romantic sets and structure, it managed to transport me back to all of the most romantic times in my life, reminding me that I've been away from Ireland, the guitar and this film's overall passion for far too long.