Once
Last spring before heading off to Ireland
I read a glowing review of The
Swell Season, a musical collaboration between
Frames
frontman Glen Hansard & Czech singer/pianist Marketa
Irglova, which placed it at the top of my Dublin
shopping list. Back in Toronto after giving it a listen
I had to wonder how, in all my years spent living
in Dublin, I'd committed the enormous oversight of
not picking up a single Frames album. I've since
remedied that by purchasing most of their back
catalogue and catching them live but for the past
month I've also been in high anticipation mode, awaiting
the Toronto release of Once.
Shot
for less than $150,000, Once (directed &
written by John Carney) tells an exceedingly simple
story with enormous charm and heart and without a
hint of guile. Glen Hansard is an Irish busker, still
suffering from a broken heart over a previous girlfriend.
Marketa Irglova does various jobs, cleaning house
and working as a street vendor. She's also a hauntingly
beautiful piano player and when the two of them begin
playing music together their growing connection is
a pleasure to watch. There are no melodramatic Hollywood
style plot points to hang the story on, just a natural
evolution of the relationship between these characters.
I have to admit that I suffered nostalgia
pangs from the very opening scene on Grafton
Street. The Dublin these two characters inhabit
was the place I lived during the 90's - not just in
location but in spirit. The film is, in fact, set
in the present day but neither of these characters
are roaring examples of the Celtic Tiger economy (nor
do they appear to care) and as a result it feels like
looking into the past, my past. In the early
to mid 90's none of the friends I had in Dublin had
any money to speak of. The unemployment rate was up
around 20% and many others were underemployed. Most
of my friends were either performers or foreigners
waylaid by Dublin's charisma. We spent our time hanging
out (in pubs, cheap restaurants and drafty, minimally
decorated flats) all seemingly searching for something
but not in any particular hurry to find it. There
were few toys (cellphones, the Internet and Xbox had
yet to work their way into popular culture) yet there
never seemed to be any shortage of things to do. Everybody
knew everyone else. Faces in the street were familiar,
even if you didn't know the name to go with the face.
Most people my age didn't have cars. We took the bus,
walked or caught taxis. I shared one phone with countless
other flat dwellers in the same building, as did so
many other people I knew. For a long time I didn't
even own a TV and didn't miss it.
I was often confused (about the usual
things - as were my friends and as the characters
are in Once) but most of my best times in Dublin
were spent just trying to figure all that stuff out,
in the exact time and place where everyone else was
figuring them out. Once is that kind of movie,
it's about two people who are miles truer than those
you'll find in most multiplex movies. I didn't know
these two particular people in Dublin in the 90's
but I feel like I did. I feel like one - or both of
them - sat down with me in some pub, cheap restaurant
or drafty flat and told me the story of them.
***
Read The Ain't It Cool interview with Glen
Hansard, Marketa Irglova and John Carney.
