We finally got through Once yesterday. I found it a little slow at first and we were both a little too tired to get through it Saturday night. I also found that both of the main characters spoke in very soft voices. There is music throughout the film so it was an exercise in volume control at CrabAppleLane. Turn up the volume to pick up what they were saying and turn down the volume when the music started blaring. It's a boy meets girl kind of story with some warm and quirky twists. The film doesn't even bother to name the two main characters. He's an Irishman living in Dublin. He works in his dad's Hoover repair shop in the city and is a street musician in his spare time. She is an immigrant from the Czech Republic who cleans houses. She lives in an apartment with her mother and daughter. They have no telephone but they have a TV. The three twenty-something guys next door, also immigrants, let themselves in to watch their TV and this is deemed normal. His father taught her to play piano. She can't afford a piano in Ireland because they're too expensive so she goes to a music shop where the owner lets her play. The story is about these two characters and the music they make. I liked the story much more than the music although some of the music was excellent. It's a good film.
Once again, Roger Ebert misses some details so thoroughly that I wonder if he's watching the film when he's in the theater. I've mentioned this before. From his review of Once:
"He takes her to a music store where he knows the owner, and they use a display piano."
"He" doesn't know the owner. "She" does. How could he miss that?
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Quote of the Day
What's the Czech for "Do you love him"?
Guy, Once
Blog of the day here.
Quote from said blog: "These are grown in the wonderfully named town of Koonoomoo here in Victoria, probably as far away as you get from their homeland. They are being sold under the name of La Petite and as we found out from the grower, they are plums from the Aquitaine region of France."
Cool name for a blog. -Rob
Now that sounds like a movie for me. As my husband calls it, a "Fi" movie. I'll keep an eye out for it, bearing in mind that our local video store deigns to stock it. Their selection tends to be very mainstream at times.
It's a small, independent film, Fi, but it generated some buzz at various film festivals where it was shown. It has a bit of a cult following. My Other Harf and I both liked it. :)