Sheer Simplicity and Brilliance

Rating: 10/10 (20 March 2008)

If you'll excuse me, the title of this comment is somewhat incorrect. What I should write, or type rather, is that the sheer simplicity of this film paves the road to it's brilliance.
I can say little about this film otherwise, besides the fact that it makes my heart tingle. From the gnawing feeling in my gut that these two, whose names are cleverly never exposed, are meant for each other, to the strange sensation that settles over me whenever I listen to the songs that so eloquently, poetically, and beautifully tell this tale, it is undeniably stealthy at worming it's way into your heart.
At the very core of this Irish masterpiece is the film-making strategy that the director and writer, John Carney, speaks of in the special features (which I have watched along with the countless times I've seen the movie). The methodical yet docile way of showing the world and melding of Marketa Irglova and Glen Hansard is an important and innocently metaphoric facet of the film.
Yet another amazing part of this movie is the music, obviously. My mother watched this movie with me the fifth time I'd seen it and her response was simply "This thing's got no PLOT!" I just said, "Whoa-- listen to the music." Not to sound to much like a Doobie Brother. The lyrics are, as best I can say, perfect in their loneliness. The use of acoustic guitar, and may I say PIANO, is flawless and endearing. The smart incorporation of a band into the plot in order to flaunt more musical diversity provides a new scope of the "musical" aspects to the movie. Overall, the music is a thing to marvel at and connect to, as we've all been there. Yet it's also something that smirks at the face of useless pop ballads, rap rants, inaudible death chants disguised as rock, the annoying twangs of country, and the meaningless beats of disco, dance, too-techno compositions, and junk like Fergie and Nelly Furtado. Songs like "Falling Slowly," "Lies," "When Your Mind's Made Up," and "Say It To Me Now" are in a category all their own: mind-boggling/life changing.
I cannot say more than I have about this piece of art, except that if I could draw on this document, I would put two giant thumbs up to everybody who had a single thing to do with this film.