Once
In the midst of my busiest week of the year, I saw Once, which was exactly the kind of break I needed. If you haven’t seen it yet, make sure you do (don’t wait for the DVD).
Once is an amazing film. Like another amazing film I saw in the past month (Silent Light, which I have reviewed elsewhere and therefore cannot yet share on the blog), you feel like you are a voyeur watching an actual story unfold before you. The low budget hand-held filming (which I normally have little appreciation for) works perfectly when I’m almost convinced I’m watching a documentary; a documentary about two lonely souls, inhabiting the poorer parts of Dublin, who meet and make beautiful music together.
As you can gather from the above, the acting was incredibly natural, so any amateur-like mistakes just added to the film’s eerie feeling of reality. The same can be said for the cinematography, which also had an amateurish feel. It almost makes you think you could have done it yourself. But don’t believe it!
The story was simple and brilliantly told. And the music? Well, there would be no Once without the music (though I would not call it a musical, as some have) and it was fabulous. And the fact that the actors really did write and sing the songs themselves adds to the overall feeling of verisimilitude.
Once is an amazing film. Like another amazing film I saw in the past month (Silent Light, which I have reviewed elsewhere and therefore cannot yet share on the blog), you feel like you are a voyeur watching an actual story unfold before you. The low budget hand-held filming (which I normally have little appreciation for) works perfectly when I’m almost convinced I’m watching a documentary; a documentary about two lonely souls, inhabiting the poorer parts of Dublin, who meet and make beautiful music together.
As you can gather from the above, the acting was incredibly natural, so any amateur-like mistakes just added to the film’s eerie feeling of reality. The same can be said for the cinematography, which also had an amateurish feel. It almost makes you think you could have done it yourself. But don’t believe it!
The story was simple and brilliantly told. And the music? Well, there would be no Once without the music (though I would not call it a musical, as some have) and it was fabulous. And the fact that the actors really did write and sing the songs themselves adds to the overall feeling of verisimilitude.
I’m too busy to write more and this is all I need to say: Don’t miss it! **** My mug is up once again.
I just happen to see this movie last week-end and I must agree with your review...I absolutely LOVED it! Once is for sure on my top 10 of this year.
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Finally saw this movie. Wonderful. Ditto to all you said. My only complaint was the frisbee scene on the beach - but I was almost sympathetic enough with the movie at that point to accept it. Here's an interesting thought that this movie brought to mind for me: not, in general, being a lover of old movies (sorry), I thought maybe I was addicted to the technical polish of contemporary Hollywood. Clearly this movie demonstrates that technical polish is not required to make a great movie (of this type). So why is it old movies leave me cold? Hmm.
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