So, I went to see “Once” at the Little Theater tonight and drove straight out to buy the soundtrack, and now I’m trying to decide if I would love these songs as much if I hadn’t seen the movie, or if I would like the movie as much if the songs weren’t so great. I still can’t make up my mind, but I’ve listened to the CD three times now and even played parts of it for a friend, so I’m guessing that the answer to the first question, at least, is…wait, what was the first question again?
“Once”, in case you don’t know, is a story about two people at roughly the same reckoning point in far-from-perfect relationships, though they come to that moment from very different places. Both are musicians, and while their artistic collaboration sprouts wings and soars almost instantaneously, their personal relationship has a harder time getting off the ground. A sort of clumsy romance defers a storybook ending and leaves the viewer hoping for the best for both of the engaging main characters.
The film was written and directed by John Carney, former The Frames bassist, and stars Glen Hansard, the band’s lead singer, opposite Czech pianist Marketa Irglova. These two had collaborated on 2005’s “Swell Sessions” and “Once” features several revisited tracks they recorded in Prague at that time. I knew Glen Hansard seemed familiar, and after a while, to my delight it hit me he was the same ingenuous redheaded boy I remembered from “The Commitments” (a 1990 favorite of mine based on a novel by Roddy Doyle), all grown up now but just as cuddly.
The movie was a little underproduced for my tastes; I found the low lighting distracting at times, though there are some lovely continuous camera shots down Dublin streets and along country highways. I felt impatient with a couple scenes that seemed to last just slightly longer than necessary. Varying sound levels were used as a near-seamless narrative device, knitting spontaneous live songs into the storyline. It all seemed so up-close and personal that it felt almost like an invasion of the musicians’ privacy to bear witness to some of these performances. The palpable vulnerability of the characters heightened this effect and almost launched the whole thing too far into the realm of the uncomfortable. I might have -- I’m not saying I did, just that I might have -- laughed at one scene where a sad guitarist pours his heart out over his guitar, sitting on his bed in his room under his Leonard Cohen poster, reflecting that Glen Hansard may well have spent his adolescence this way. The music was too good, though, and pulled me back just in time.
I couldn’t decide if some of the relationships and themes in the movie deserved greater development, or if I liked the spareness of the storyline, which consistently insinuated and suggested rather than drove home. In some ways, it seemed that the story was more of a scaffold for the songs than anything else, giving the film a revue-like quality. Still, the acting and writing were genuine enough to be engaging in their own right, and the musician-actors are certainly talented enough to pull it off. It never feels hackneyed or clunky the way traditional musicals can. Anyone who makes music or really really loves it will identify with the scene in which the protagonists first sing and play together, and the way they reveal themselves to one another more effectively through their music than through their conversations.
Which brings us to the music. I’ve not spent much time listening to The Frames but I suspect I will now have no choice. I like the frank, Cat-Stevensy quality of Hansard’s voice. His lyrics just ache, but at times he leaves them behind altogether to cry more melodically than any human being I’ve ever heard. The harmonies on the songs he shares with Marketa Irglova are absolutely enchanting. The songs seem at once deeply personal and anchored to the film, which again makes me wonder if I’d appreciate them the same had I not seen it, but there’s no denying they’re beguiling in their own right. Something is definitely laid bare there, and wants and deserves to be heard.
So, in short, go see “Once” and listen to the soundtrack. Or listen to the “Once” soundtrack and go see the movie. And if you remember, call me up and tell me if one of the set musicians in “Once” is Joey “the Lips” Fagan from “The Commitments”.
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