Soundtrack Lovin’ – Once
Print Screen Editor Francesca Sylph reviews the soundtrack of Once.
Directed by John Carney, Once tells the story of two struggling musicians in Dublin and their blossoming love. Glen Hansard (from the Irish rock band The Frames) plays a heartbroken vacuum repairman who moonlights as an unlucky street musician. One day, he meets a young Czech immigrant (played by Markéta Irglová) who earns a living selling flowers, and the unlikely pair decide to collaborate. The two leads make up folk rock duo The Swell Season and together they co-wrote and performed all the film’s original songs. Carney actually developed the script around the songs which Hansard and Irglová had given him, resulting in a perfectly fitting soundtrack that is intertwined with the narrative.
a perfectly fitting soundtrack that is intertwined with the narrative.
The humble, intimate and romantic ‘Falling Slowly’ (“I don’t know you / But I want you / All the more for that”), which won an Academy Award for Best Original Song in 2008, is a hopeful love letter to the power of human connection. ‘Broken Hearted Hoover Fixer Sucker Guy’ is humorous and self-deprecating and ‘Lies’ is heartbreakingly vulnerable (“The little cracks they escalated / And before we knew it was too late”). The soundtrack for Once is an absolute gem of indie folk rock that represents the best of Irglová and Hansard’s musical collaboration.
