Guileless

Rating: 8/10 (31 December 2007)

'Once' is a slight and charming film. And when it's over, the final scene captures a bittersweet tone I haven't seen since Local Hero. It closes a moment in these characters lives and sends these people away very respectfully, very nicely, which is completely in line with the rest of the movie. The pleasures were modest, and yet one misses the chance of further moments with such ordinary people instantly. Initially, as I watched, I was selecting places the conflict would come from and casting new faces as the villain... but this movie dispenses with villains, explosions, chases, false conflicts, false endings; underscoring what tired contrivances they are. It also dismisses iPods, style, attitude, bitchiness, conspicuous consumption... All of this crap proves to be extraneous. Reality sells itself. Human beings are back, front and center. How is it that Lars von Triers reductivist "Dogme 95" rules, which should result in simple, direct movies like this, instead yield his last 5 pieces of phony, over-mannered, art-schlock.
As soon as I was done I wanted to review certain scenes. The standard sincere contemporary Irish emo ballad (caterwauling) and the Irish tendency for rooms full of drunken people to break into awful songs, are not my cup of tea but it barely matters. The movie is very small and honest. Try pitching that to Hollywood.
You: "I'd like to make a nice, small, honest movie"
Hollywood: "That's not what we do"
The supportive Irish family (There IS such a thing?), supportive friends, & strangers seem atypical to this Irish American. Where are the miserable, envious relatives undercutting your every move with crippling, defeatist remarks and guilt? (yuck yuck) I would love to see this movie win a boatload of Oscars to show Hollywood another, less grotesque, way to proceed. Unfortunately with the writers strike, the Oscars are likely to be canceled.