Once in a Lifetime Experience
Last week, while making a list of Summer films I was eager to see, I came upon one I hadn't heard of, and was very excited about, called Once. Oddly enough, it's a small musical from Ireland starring Glen Hansard of The Frames (who I saw last Tuesday) and Marketa Irglova, the girl he collaborated with to make The Swell Season, an album I absolutely loved. And I had somehow not heard of it.
So I quickly read up on the film everywhere I could online. I found the Fox Searchlight site, the original Irish site, the MySpace site, and a bunch of videos on YouTube of the trailer and various performances, especially at Sundance where they won the audience award for the world cinema category. I noticed that Fox Searchlight was doing small free promotional screenings around the country, but alas, not in NYC. I added the MySpace page as a buddy and was sad to know that I wouldn't be able to afford to see it in the theatres when it came out in May.
Monday, at lunch, I randomly checked MySpace and discovered that there was an announcement about a screening of Once in NYC Tuesday night. I jumped on it and was able to RSVP. Oddly enough, the screening was at the Cantor Film Center at NYU where I had classes and film screenings. Tuesday was obviously a pretty craptastic day, but I had hopes that the film would improve things.
I stopped quickly at K-Mart and Barnes & Noble before realizing that I indeed couldn't even afford a package of boxer shorts. Broadway was all backed up from some protest parade and traffic was scary in the village, especially the ambulances all stopped with their lights flashing, nowhere to go and hopefully no one dying inside. I also grabbed a couple slices from La Mia Pizza where I used to go when I was at NYU. A fellow Sox fan chatted me up a bit. He apparently had dinner with the batting coach and the guy who helped get Manny on the Sox.. Wasn’t sure if he was delusional or just rich. Later on I saw him at the screening and realized that he was somehow involved with filmmaking. Apparently somewhat of a big-wig.
We waited outside for quite a bit before being let in. I grabbed an aisle seat about 6 rows back (a good seat in the odd theatre that is Cantor) and waited a while again for the film to start. I eves-dropped on the studio people as I like to do at these things. Eventually the director was introduced and he spoke for about a minute before the film, mentioning to stay behind afterwards for some Q&A.
The film was magical. Beautiful. Brilliant even. Some movies just make me smile from ear to ear so much that my face starts to actually ache from the grinning. This is just such a movie. There are some great laughs and some bittersweet moments that make the eyes mist, but more than anything, this film just plastered a massive grin to my face.
I’m going to make a bold statement. Once is Before Sunrise: The Musical. For those of you who have not yet experienced Before Sunrise, I don’t have the time to try and catch you up to one of the great cinematic experiences in the history of the medium. Just make sure you see it. Yesterday if possible.
In any event, the two films share huge similarities in terms of plot. A man and a woman of different nationalities meet by chance and happen to strike up a conversation. They spend time getting to know one another and start to fall in love. Profoundly interesting side characters quickly slip in and out of their story. Circumstances, however, seem as though they will keep the perfect couple from being together. Finally, a deadline approaches and a difficult decision must be made.
The thing that sets these two films apart is how the characters fall in love. In Before Sunrise, they talk. For hours, while the minimalist plot unfolds, they simply have conversations. Well, not exactly simply. They have some of the most interesting and revealing conversations ever put to film. They are intelligent, personal, unique, and natural. And while these conversations take place, Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy give career best performances, adding subtleties, listening intently, and above all, very naturally and beautifully falling in love. In a way, we believe they are falling for one another not only because they’re incredibly charming and we the audience are falling for them, but because only two people who were meant for one another could have such profoundly beautiful conversations.
In Once, music is substituted for those conversations. The two characters each have songs of their own and the story seems to be following the POV of Glen more so than Marketa, but the same magic happens here as in Before Sunrise. When the two of them get together, we believe that they are falling in love with one another not only because they’re incredibly charming and we the audience are falling for them, not only because the music is so gorgeous, but because only two people who were meant for one another could make such profoundly beautiful music. Seeing Glen share a song, teach it to Marketa, and then let her add her own voice is exhilarating and romantic.
This is not to say that there is not good music in Before Sunrise or good dialogue in Once. Both films feature excellent scenes of these elements. Maybe the most famous scene in Before Sunrise takes place in a cramped listening booth where the only sound is the song they are listening to. Likewise, there are some very memorable non-musical moments in Once where the characters share things, hide things, and dance about their feelings.
There are some who will find these films boring. They will complain about long rambling conversations or full musical performances that go on for 5 minutes at a time with no easily discernable plot progression. In particular, if these particular conversations and songs don’t appeal to a viewer, they’re in for a particularly unpleasant experience, because the filmmakers, John Carney and Richard Linklater, wrote and directed films in which the whole of the text is essentially these conversations and songs while the true story is all in the subtext, something that will probably be missed on those people who don’t enjoy the complex and layered music and intellectual conversations featured here.
The response was excellent with a vigorous and lengthy round of applause at the start of the credits, another at the end, and one more when the director took the stage. He answered a couple questions himself before welcoming Glen and Marketa up with him. The questions were all answered intelligently and with great humor. The stories told were interesting and enjoyable. Marketa was insanely cute and almost as silent. Eventually, I asked a question myself and apparently it was the $1,000,000 question. There had been some songs in the film not featured on the Swell Season album and I asked if they would be releasing the songs officially. Glen answered that they just finished recording the official soundtrack and that it would be released in the U.S. And he happened to have a few copies in his pocket. And I of course got one. Glen and Mar (as they called her) performed a couple songs unplugged and unmiked, using Glen’s old acoustic guitar that has been played so much it has a massive hole, or series of holes really, below the strings. It was beautiful.
Afterwards, we were allowed to talk briefly with the director and actors and get autographs. I told Glen about last Tuesday when my birthday started pretty horribly and then ended amazingly with the Frames concert and how yesterday was going even worse but that once again, Glen Hansard and friends swooped in and saved my Tuesday. I can’t wait to see what he does next week. I asked the director briefly if he had seen Before Sunrise and he professed his love of the film. My comparison seemed to throw him at first, but then he seemed to understand how similar they were, was flattered, and said that it would be a dream come true to have people compare the films. As it was late and I’m not a drinker, I passed on the after party the entire audience was invited to. They had a bar they were headed to and the studio was buying everyone their first pint. Instead, I set out for Astoria, my iPod blaring and a grin still stretched across my face.
I came home to discover some nice LJ comments/e-mails about my freak-out from earlier and a Rangers win in the Stanley Cup semi-s. I let out a single “fuck” when I learned of Papelbon’s first blown save of the year, but was happy I didn’t sit through the experience. I crawled into bed and watched a brilliant Gilmore Girls (the karaoke scene, so silly in concept, was so amazing in execution and needs to be sent to the Emmy voters now) and a Veronica Mars that wavered between clever and absurd for an hour. I fell asleep to the sounds of a newly ripped Once soundtrack.
A much improved day.