Clothespins, Backyard
Last night, Ryan, Torry, and I went over to the Lyric to listen to a little Celtic music, drink a few beers, and check out a complimentary screening of Once. My friend Thurman couldn’t say enough about this movie, and I can totally see why. Aside from the fact that he and Glen Hansard could be brothers (seriously), it’s the perfect, epithetical Thurmanesque love-story: Amazing man meets woman, woman is a great match and also amazing, man and woman have great connection, woman is too young or woman is involved with another man, and while the friendship is magical the timing for romantic love is rotten.
Yes, yes, yes, as everyone says the music is smartly woven into the story, which is a very natural story to begin with. And here’s the best part: the actors seem like real people onscreen. Never once did I feel like, “I’m watching a movie. Those people are acting.” Instead, I felt like I was following along with a story a very good friend was telling me, or that I was a part of the experience with people I really knew. Or, maybe I felt like I was watching a short-story come to life. (Part of that probably stems from the intimacy you achieve in film with handheld shots.) The characters are more real than what most actors and films deliver. While I felt like the film was hard to see sometimes, I think that was more a technical projection issue than a filmmaking issue. I’m looking forward to seeing it again on DVD. …Especially those scenes by the ocean. And Marketa’s night walk back from the shop in her pajamas.
In other news, more rain coming. I can tell the darker days and overcast skies are affecting my mood, but really, I’m ready for some quiet introspection and pensive pulp. We can’t be our best all the time, and the rain gives us good reason to retreat for a bit. Besides, the ground is perfect now for weeding the garden on the south side of the house. (Bindweed and “Gates Mills weed” [mine's not the variegated variety] everywhere.)
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