One note, one chord, one lyric can connect us all to music. At any moment, a song or a voice can inspire you to want to follow your dream of making music. And be the next musician that inspires others to make the music they want to make, and tell the stories that they want to tell. It can also be just a hugely therapeutic way of getting out one’s emotions and baggage of the past, in order to move forward with one’s life.
Music can also inspire true connection, leaving you wanting to work with those that made the music with you over and over again, till your dying breath on this planet. So when a girl (Markéta Irglová) walks up to a struggling street performer (Glen Hansard) on a cold night in Dublin, Ireland, all those elements connect these two musicians start. Leading to one of the most authentic musical films in cinematic history.
In John Carney’s Once, we are given the story of two artists. One coming off a relationship that has now led him to a crossroads in his life; and the other, a woman with a child who is separated from her husband. Respectfully, the character’s names in the film are Guy and Girl, and while they could be considered to most people just ordinary people, they see much more in each other. They see in each other the potential to make a musical partnership, that can challenge each other’s strengths. While also make them have to come face to face with the decision to make their dreams a reality.
“They learn their love for music is mutual, and more than just a hobby that they do on the side.”
The two learn a lot about each other within a matter of weeks. By talking and understanding each other, having basic human conversations about life and the problems each face on a daily basis. They learn their love for music is mutual, and more than just a hobby that they do on the side. They really love what they do and start song writing and playing songs together.
While learning this connection, we the audience also learn what their relationship is going to be as it relates to any kind of romance. Those notions are shot down early on by Carney’s script because this really isn’t that kind of film. Well, in the sense that this isn’t your usual love story. The love that the two of them have for one another comes from the music they create together and the time they have spent. It’s professional because it’s established early that it is off the table.
Besides, the only reason the Guy goes after Girl is because he is heartbroken, and wants to be with his ex-girlfriend that went to London. He didn’t go with her because he was taking after his father and didn’t have the confidence to make his music and move on to chance his dreams.
The opening of the film, with Guy signing “Say It to Me Now”, shows not only his passion for music but the pain that he is going through knowing that she is gone and he is stuck with a “broken heart.” Music and song writing is a painful, lonely business that requires the right amount of passion to kick-start your dreams, and help you move on through the dark times in your life.
That’s why when Girl walks into his life, and thus he is reborn. Especially after they sing in the music shop, and the song that they sing is the Oscar winning “Falling Slowly.” As perfect of a song that you will find in any film, “Falling Slowly” is used not only as a glimpse of what is to come from these two artists, but it tells us that these two are meant to fall slowly into a bond that will change each other’s life.
“Hansard and Irglová’s chemistry during every scene of the film shines through perfectly.”
“I don’t know you, but I want you, all the more for that” along with “Falling slowly, eyes that know me, and I can’t go back” place the connection of these two strongly right off the bat. As well as connective tissue to the relationships with the ones they are with that have frozen in time due to circumstances.
Throughout the rest of the film, we are given more songs, like “If You Want Me”, “Lies” and “All the Way Down”, that are continuing to use their pain from their past to create something. A chance to turn their dream of music into something more. They realize they have to record an album, mostly so that Guy can get their music to London and be a ticket out of his stationary life.
Girl goes along with it because she trusts him just as much as anyone, and the two walk into the studio with a small band ready to go. The technician in the booth thinks they are just another band looking to waste their money on a feckless dream of fame and musical fortune. But when they start playing “When Your Mind’s Made Up”, that technician’s mind is changed just like the audience’s was when the film began.
Hansard and Irglová’s chemistry during every scene of the film shines through perfectly. Both, who were no names at the time, take these simple characters on the page and give them more life than any trained actors would have ever been able to give them. Carney based a lot of the Guy character on Hansard, and when his other acting choices fell through, Hansard, who was writing all the music for the film before being cast in the lead role. Filled in perfectly and gave us a view of his world before it changed forever after this film came out.
“Once is a lighting in a bottle, once in a lifetime kind of film to make.”
And as much as Hansard was a find, Irglová was the real shining star found for this film. Her gentle, angelic voice burned a lasting memory in my mind from the moment she sang “If You Want Me.” While her chemistry on camera with Hansard is beautiful and at times poetic. She has true fire in her and the moments she shines are moments when it is just her or when she is with her family. It’s crazy to think they only did this movie because, besides being great musicians, they really pull off all the acting quite well.
Once is a lighting in a bottle, once in a lifetime kind of film to make. While Carney has gone on to try to make something along the same lines with Begin Again and Sing Street, he hasn’t been able to catch this magic again. The expression of “less is more” always comes up in the genre of music films. Dozens of films over time have shown us the rise and fall of musicians, both real and fictional, to tell an ambitious tale of success.
These films often don’t succeed in being anything more than a history lesson with songs we know. Or a film that is a watered down version of the star being born right in front of our very eyes with music that is not memorable at all. We have seen these films more recently come back, with generic story lines that bleed off nostalgia and no originality. What Carney, along with Hansard and Irglová, did was create the single greatest musical film of the 21st century so far, and no one has been able to top it since.
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