Honestly, I should have done this a couple weeks ago, but I wanted a chance to re-watch the movie in question. Strangely enough, as great as I thought it was nearly 20 years ago when I first saw it, I had really only seen it... well, once.
In the movie, Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová play "Guy" and "Girl." Guy works with his father repairing vacuum cleaners, but his true passion is music. In his spare time, he can be seen busking on the streets of Dublin playing his songs with aspirations of moving to London to try to make a living as a musician.
Girl happens to see him playing and approaches him. The two strike up a conversation where Guy discovers that Girl also plays piano. He shows her his songs and they start playing together. Over the course of a few days, before he heads off to London, they get together with some other musical friends to record some of Guy's songs in a professional studio. As you might guess, Guy and Girl fall in love.
The film became the darling of the Sundance Film Festival and was one of the most critically acclaimed films of 2007. In 2008, it went on to win an Academy Award for the song "Falling Slowly" (written by Hansard and Irglová), beating out three songs from Disney's Enchanted.
I received a text a couple of weeks ago from my uncle (whose name, oddly enough, is actually Guy), informing me that Hansard had been killed in a motorcycle accident. I was loosely familiar with Hansard's music outside of the film, but immediately felt bad that I wasn't as familiar with his work as so many music geeks my age.
Hansard had begun his career in the 1990s as a member of the Irish rock band The Frames. Over the years, he also worked as a solo artist and formed the band The Swell Season. He and Irglová even continued to work together both professionally and personally for a couple of years after the success of the film. I'm sure his sudden death will prompt me to explore his music further and wish I had been more familiar with it when he was alive.
This week's film--the one that was all the rage at Sundance back in '07--was written and directed by John Carney, who was a former bassist and vocalist for the Frames and knew Hansard well. Hansard had last acted nearly 15 years earlier in the classic The Commitments and had been primarily focused on his music. But Carney convinced him to do it and the results speak for themselves. I don't know why I waited so long to re-watch the movie and I'm sad that it took Hansard's death to get me to do so. Now that it's a little more fresh in my mind, I'm sure I won't wait as long next time. This week, please enjoy Once... preferably more than once.
As stated in my Album of the Week "sermon," I'll be taking the next couple of weeks off from writing these. Until I return, stay safe, be good to your neighbours, and please remember that if at first you don't succeed, then skydiving definitely isn't for you.
Yours in peace, love, and rock 'n' roll!
The Reverend Will the Thrill
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