Hello SuperForesters!!! It’s Friday! A great day for kicking back with a tasty beverage, having dinner with family or catching a movie! This week’s film is: Once.
Once is a charming, honest film about an Irish musician and a Czech woman who connect through music. For those of you who are familiar with this film, I’m sure you’re also familiar with The Swell Season, the musical group created out of the film. Both the film and the group are made up of two main musicians: Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova.
This film is SuperForesty because it is honest, transparent, artistic and inspiring. I am sure there are many other reasons as well, but I thought I’d start there. The sheer honesty that is felt in the interactions between the two main characters is so refreshing, almost arresting. When they are hanging out on the streets of Dublin, you feel like you’re there with them, which I think is a feeling a lot of big studio films lack. When they’re having more intimate, quiet moments, you feel the honesty. You can literally feel his loneliness.
The music that resulted from this movie is amazing. Raw, emotional songs, at times a full sound, at times quietly acoustic. Perhaps part of the reason this film was so honest and beautiful was that the two leads were actually connecting romantically behind the camera. Apparently they had known each other for years and ended up having a relationship after the movie wrapped. I have since heard that they are no longer romantically linked, but you can’t deny their musical chemistry if you’ve ever heard their music as The Swell Season.
This movie gave me flashbacks to when I used to crush on moody musicians back in my early university days, when the feelings are so strong, music sounds better, everything seems more dramatic. But it’s not all brooding and melancholy in Once. In the end, it is an inspiring feeling that stays with you because of the generosity shown and the dreams that are pursued.
I highly recommend this film if you haven’t seen it! Have a wonderful weekend everyone!
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