Kyle Smith has a regret. That regret was awarding 3-1/2 stars to a film he now feels deserved 4 stars. Smith was “blown away” by the film “Once.” Smith admits, in the WSJ’s “Free Expression,” to needing a second viewing to cement his opinion that it’s one of the truly great films of the 21st century.
It’s easily the finest musical of this century, too. It isn’t only a tenderly crushing love story but also, more subtly, a story of music itself, how essential it is, what it does for us, what a gift it is.
Like many others, Smith was slow to grasp the importance of “Once.” Smith didn’t view it at the Sundance Film Festival. Like others, he fell for films such as quickly-forgotten features such as “Hounddog,” “Grace Is Gone,” “Black Snake Moan,” “The Nines,” “Year of the Dog,” “Joshua” and “Chapter 27.” The opening-night selection was “Chicago 10.”
“Once” was somewhat inspired by the life story of its star, Glen Hansard, who died last week in a motorcycle crash at 56. Mr. Hansard was an Irish busker in his teens, then in 1990 formed a rock group, the Frames, which was later joined by a bass player named John Carney. Mr. Carney went off to make films. His idea for “Once,” which he wrote and directed, was to have Cillian Murphy play the lead, but he needed songs, and turned to Mr. Hansard to create them. The results were so impressive that Mr. Carney gave Mr. Hansard the lead role, as a nameless busker (“Guy,” according to the credits) working Grafton Street in Dublin.
Was “Once” Fiction?
The bulk of “Once” was fiction; in reality, Mr. Hansard (who after he formed the Frames achieved a little fame as one of the background musicians in the 1991 hit movie “The Commitments”) and Ms. Irglová had known each other for years, ever since she was a kid, because her father was a music promoter who had won bookings for the Frames in the Czech Republic. In 2005 they formed a musical duo, the Swell Season, some of whose songs made it into “Once.” They started dating after filming, when they were touring to promote their movie (and won an Oscar for co-writing “Falling Slowly,” the film’s shattering centerpiece and the one that plays over that overwhelming last scene). They broke up after a couple of years but remained good friends even after they married other people, and continued to work together. Mr. Hansard said at the time, “The crux of the whole thing is, we make good music together. I’ve always impressed her with a guitar in my hand. I just wasn’t as good in bed. No, I’m kidding.”
The dialogue is spare; much of it routine conversation.
When Guy asks Girl, referring to her husband, how to say, “Do you love him” in Czech, she replies, in Czech, “No, I love you.” Neither Guy nor the portion of the audience that doesn’t speak Czech knows what she says. There is no subtitle.
The Unfolding Story
In the songs, with each of the two leads working out their feelings in lyrics.
(The movie was later adapted into a Tony-winning Broadway musical.) “I don’t know you/But I want you/All the more for that,” Mr. Hansard sings in “Falling Slowly.” “If you want me, satisfy me,” Ms. Irglova sings in “If You Want Me.” The music is the point, not simply the vibe.
A Transcendent Scene
When Guy brings a guitar to a dinner party, amidst a “forest” of empty bottles, someone starts singing. Then someone else sings, and Guy starts strumming. Next, a violin appears, a band forms, and beautiful music is played. At this point, what is already an “exceptional film” is elevated to “an ethereal level, an enchanted land where music reigns, where humanity is at its finest.” Here, the film shows, “why we live.”
Music is an art form that is inherently social. Musicians don’t need to fumble about to form deep bonds with others. Music erases barriers: age, sex, ethnicity, class, shyness and relative levels of fame melt away.
The dinner-party scene recalls a story Mr. Hansard used to tell about his life. When he was a busker, a mutual friend invited him to a birthday party for his idol Van Morrison (who can be a grouch and is also so shy he has sometimes performed with his back to the audience). Mr. Morrison played a little. Mr. Hansard played a little. The two wound up playing together, and the experience was one of the most perfect moments of Mr. Hansard’s life. How could it be otherwise? Simply to listen to Mr. Morrison’s best songs (or Mr. Hansard’s) is to be transported, to be uplifted. Performing them together must have been sublime. And sublime is the word for the way “Once” locates the magic in music.
The Final
What was Mr. Hansard doing the last night of his life? He was playing in an ordinary pub in Dublin like a newcomer, rather than that of one of Ireland’s most famed musicians.
(Hansard) … said that when he was a drug-using teen, he discovered Bob Dylan. From that moment all he wanted to do was make music. As of last Wednesday, Mr. Dylan and Mr. Morrison have both outlived Mr. Hansard. There was always an ache underlying his best work; now the sorrow is profound. But its beauty is undying.
