A modern day musicalset on the streets of Dublin that is so simple, real and unpretentious ~ it will emotionally creep up on you and knock your socks off : Allen L Roland
Winner of the Audience Award for World Cinema ( Drama ) at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival ~ Writer/Director John Carney tells the story of an emotionally vulnerable street musician ( Glen Hansard ) who meets and collaborates with a Czech single mother immigrant ( Marketa Irglova ) who is dirt poor, struggling to support a child and yearns for a piano.
They are both outsiders, struggling with their art and their broken hearts but they find a common synergy through their music and over the course of a few days their relationship blossoms to the point where their music and damaged hearts begin to mend and soar in unexpected ways.
This movie is so simple, real and unpretentious ~ that it will emotionally creep up on you and knock your socks off and that's without even mentioning the incredible music featuring Glen Hansard and his Irish band The Frames.
What is so profound about this movie is the emotional depth of this unlikely collaboration and how they reach a level of unconditional love that transcends them both and, in the process, touched myself and the equally stunned audience at the deepest level.
In this superficial world it is rare to witness the power and profound simplicity of unconditional love ~ set to music ~ but ONCE pulls it off without a hitch and more than deserves its Sundance award if not an Academy Award.
Allen L Roland is a practicing psychotherapist, author and lecturer who also shares a daily political and social commentary on his weblog and website allenroland.com He also guest hosts a monthly national radio show TRUTHTALK on Conscious talk radio www.conscioustalk.net
