kieran's Talk

Once

Director:John Carney
Released: 2007
Stars: Glen Hansard, Markéta Irglová, Hugh Walsh and Gerard Hendrick
Genre: Drama, Music
Country: Ireland









A modern-day musical about a busker and an immigrant and their eventful week in Dublin, as they write, rehearse and record songs that tell their love story.

Well, I don't think i've seen a film quite like this before. I've seen the odd musical, not quite like this but "Once" has left me feeling speechless and in such a great mood. One of the best of 2007 for sure.

Once's narrative is very simple. There are no character names for our two leads, and the guy refers to the girl as "herself", which shows how irrelevant the character's names are and that we can understand the character perfectly without that. You are able to follow the story along very well and often realte to the characters. I love the way the camera pins in on the character, which makes you imeaditly focus on them rather than whether you follow the story or not. Just brilliant. Which proves you can make a superb film with a low budget and make your audience perfectly content.

Seriously, I didn't expect Once to have an affect on me at all. There's just something about the music which makes you take notice and almost reflect on your own life, everything around you seems utterly meaningless. The songs are incredibly powerful and enagaging that what everis happening in the narrative, you couldn't care less about.

The two main leads, as I said before are two people you can releate to. Girl is stugglinh to make ends meet after moving to Ireland and Guy, a Hoover repair man who's trying to get a record deal, whilst dealing with the loss of his girlfriend. Both are trying to work their way up the social ladder. They both love music and that's what eventually brings them together. You can see throught the film the chemistry between the two leads, which is possibly why I was able to feel for both characters a lot. It's not supring both are a couple outside this film, they seem to be a perfect match.

One another thing, which I enjoyed about this film was the scenery arounf Ireland. Despite being filmed on a low-budget, it seemed to add to the film's authenticity and made think that this could be happening anyway, anytime rather than your typical girl-meets boy type film. The fact it's filmed in Ireland, does make it seem that more real aswell as it's not everyday a film comes out from Ireland, quite like this.

Once is one of the best films of 2007 and possibly one of the better musical type films that you'll ever seen. Authetic, vibrant and engaging and will leave you feeling incredibly happy after you've watched it.

NOTE: I may end up rating this 5 stars, as I was left speechless after watching this

Highly Recomened viewing