Music and romance, both in best form

Rating: Null/10 (9 April 2008)

Strangely, I associated "Once" almost immediately with "Lost in translation". It is perhaps not that strange if you really think about it. Although LIT does not have anything remotely musical in its content, both movies are also about two people meeting randomly, and then connecting, because of a common experience. One is music, and the other is loneliness. Even more than that, all four protagonists are coming from a troubled love relationship. In LIT, these relationships are approaching the point of failure. In Once, they have already failed.
I find it difficult to decide whether music or commiserating in lost love that is the stronger link between he and she (their "names" in the movie are "guy" and "girl"). I finally decided that it is music. But when they first meet, when she listens to him singing in the evening at a deserted street corner in Dublin, she seems just as interested in what is behind the song as in the song itself. She keeps on asking him about his ex-girlfriend. It's a little later in the movie that he finds out more about her, how she has left her husband behind in Czechoslovakia and come to Ireland with her mother and toddler daughter.
It is however beyond a shadow of a doubt that they first really connect when they have a chance to play together, with the kind permission of a music store manager, during a quiet hour. After she has played a little Mendelssohn on the piano, he shows her one of his songs, in simple C major, and invites her to try to join in with the piano. After tentatively trying a few phrases and the chorus, she gets more and more into the song until finally guitar, piano and two beautiful voices sound like they have been playing together for years. I have watched not a few scenes in other movies that are musically superior, but none, not one, that is as beautiful.
This short (less than 90 minutes) and sweet (and sometimes bittersweet) movie evolves around how they make music together, how they talk about themselves and their feelings through music and the "climax" of their renting a proper studio and, together with a few other street musicians assembled, record a quality demo which finally allows him to get his musical career started in London. She gets a new start on her life too when her husband comes to join her to give their relationship another try.
With refreshing understatement, the brief romance, if we can call it that, between the protagonists is at once heartwarming and heart-wrenching. There is no pretence that physical (or sexual, if you like) attraction does not exist. Soon fater their first encounter, he invites her to stay for the night, which she flatly refuses but does not hold it against him after his sincere apology. Towards the end, after the exhilarating experience of recording all night at the studio and knowing that this will be the last day before he leaves for London, he asks her to come to his place to listen to the CD again. She says that as they have completed their musical mission, what is there left for them to do but "hanky panky". Smiling, she says, "And they wouldn't be bad". After his persistent plead, she says she'll come. She never did. Their musical union has transcended anything physical. Their parting in front of the recording studio in the wee hours of the morning, when she gives him a quick, light kiss on the cheek, is the last we see them together in the movie. And that is for the best.
Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglove are wonderful. My only regret is that I didn't get to watch the movie until after Oscar night.