Once....and I'm still bleeding.

"When you do something, you should burn yourself completely,
like a good bonfire, leaving no trace of yourself."
-Shunryu Suzuki

This movie grabbed me like no movie I have seen in a really long time. I am going to be completely honest...I felt like I was going to cry so many times watching or listening to this movie. In fact, I wish I would have...because not crying was harder than just diving into the pathos that was all over this movie. I was emotionally mesmerized by the songs...Glen Hansard ripped me open with his singing and left me bleeding for a day now. When he was singing his song "All the way down" in the street at night...I wanted to stand up and shout and...I dont know what, kick something, i guess, just to express the pent up emotion that he unleashed by his voice and guitar. Damn....can one man really pack that much emotion in one small moment without causing some kind of nuclear reaction in the elements around him? And Markéta Irglová....wow has there been a woman on film more attractive or more beautiful in all her simple womanly charms? Not the Hollywood stuff but the real stuff...the things you stay with a woman over...smiles, nose crinkles, head tilts...the way they walk or listen or care for their kids....the charm of one deeply in love with an instrument...liked she loved piano.

This movie might be more deeply felt if you have ever wrestled through any of the sufferings that were at the heart of this story. I don't know if you can appreciate the song "Lies" if you have never tasted the bitterness that such a betrayal or the sorrow that a crumbling relationship produces.

The movie capture the mysterious moment of creation that happens when a song is played by a group and they enter that place that seems almost holy in it's perfectness. When the song and the heart and the moment all come together in a way that seems touched by the eternal. Musicians often call it being "In the pocket" but that seems far to simplistic to describe such a gift.

I think the summation of his elderly dad in the end, after he listens to the recording sums it up, best...you will have to see the film to see what he says.