1. Once (2006)

Victoria,

Our inaugural film viewing out of the box, as you know, was the musical Once.  This was my second viewing of the 2006 feature, and I found myself enjoying the movie despite having already seen it.  I must confess, I only remembered vague details going in - this may speak to the quality of the film, or it may say more about my fading ability to recall information.  Neither is a great conclusion.

Ailing memory aside (and my disparaging opener too), there is some cool stuff going on in this movie.  I like to think about this movie as the anti-musical musical.  Sure, there are people singing throughout, and, in keeping with the genre, there are people working through their emotions in song.  Unlike musicals from the past, like Singing in the Rain, or more modern musicals, like Dreamgirls, this film seems intent on subverting all of the things we identify as recognizable tropes.  Gone are scenes in which people sing the narrative to each other, backed by a thirty piece orchestra.  In its place are two unnamed singer-songwriters (Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova of The Swell Season) explaining their impoverished, emotionally battered existence to each other, backed only by a guitar or piano.  Gone are elaborate set pieces with dazzling camera-work and hundreds of dancing extras.  In its place are a couple of patiently set-up jam sessions, filmed with what is (I hope) a knowing disregard for the conventions of visual composition.  The fun thing about all of this is that, though it looks and feels very different from a typical musical, it also looks and feels weirdly the same.  Yes, the film is romantic, insofar as a guy and a girl find each other and build a connection over the course of the movie.  The ending is decidedly unromantic though, in that both characters choose to forsake this connection and attempt to reconcile with the former partners at the epicenter of their song-generating angst.

I particularly like the conclusion, actually, because it marries romance with responsibility.  This is its most radical departure from the traditions of the movie musical, and its most satisfying move as a film.  The ending asks us to think about this story as existing without discrete boundaries.  These characters have a real chemistry, yet they have lives that extend both backwards and forwards beyond the opening and the rolling of credits.  The untold stories, some of which are glimpsed in the home video montage during the song “Lies,” carry just as much, and ultimately more, weight than what we see on screen.  This suggests that there are limits to the power of romance, at least as we are used to seeing it in movie musicals.  The limiting agent is responsibility, demonstrated most powerfully through the presence of the Girl’s daughter Ivanka.  There are times when the Girl can’t go make music with the Guy - she has to work and provide for her child.  In the end, both characters memorialize their romantic connection by making a demo tape of songs, and then respectively do what they are, as human beings, responsible for.  There is a particular beauty, however stern, in this presentation.

Thoughtfully, and with love,
Adam