San Francisco International Film Festival 20 April - 04 May 2006

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Charming, wry and full of fiercely beautiful folk-rock songs, Once is a completely original little gem made on a shoestring budget with consummate skill and grace by John Carney, former bass player in the Irish band the Frames. Nonprofessional actors Glenn Hansard (Frames lead singer) and Markéta Irglová play two musicians in Dublin who fall in love with and through each other’s music. Ireland has made a magical economic recovery in recent years but the effects have yet to trickle down to these scrappy protagonists. The gingery Hansard is a rueful, wounded-in-love busker who works part-time in his father’s vacuum repair shop. Irglová, just 18 when the film was made, is an unsinkable Czech émigré pianist who makes a living selling flowers in cafés and has her hands full raising a young child. A halting courtship develops between the two and begins to blossom as Irglová encourages Hansard to record his music, which he and she then do, in a smoking marathon studio session that has a live concert’s cathartic power and a confessional’s haunting intimacy and intensity. The ending is heartbreaking but satisfying, truthful, even hopeful. A deeply moving tale told with effortless and sublime simplicity, Once has a lasting emotional impact that puts mainstream romantic comedies to shame.

—Graham Leggat

Presented in association with the San Franciso Irish Film Festival with support from the Consulate General of Ireland, San Francisco. Sponsored by Joie de Vivre Hotels and Hotel Adagio.

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