Once

The film 'Once' received an Academy Award for Best Original Song and other awards including the Independent Spirit Award for Best Foreign Film. Later a musical was created based on this film and has been highly successful on Broadway winning eight Tony awards out of eleven nominations. Despite this acclaim, however, when my friends and I were watching this film over the summer, we were very disappointed. Even my non-television/film major friends shared my beliefs that this was a very poorly made movie and that it was hard to watch. I distinctly remember that the first five minutes of the movie was a single wide shot on the male lead playing guitar that was held for way too long and had a slow, shaky, zoom in that was NOT done on a dolly. I also noticed some continuity issues and poor location planning when I could see Spring '06 collection on all of the shop windows behind the guitarist. This was a poor decision because you can tell that they shot in 2006 yet the film takes place in an earlier time judging from the props, which include exceptionally old phones and Walkman CD players. Granted they shot on a € 160,000 budget, but I was expecting more from a movie that received so much praise.

'Once' had a fantastic story about a guy and a girl who find each other through music by writing, performing, and recording songs together that show their blossoming love, however, I was cringing at how the film was made. First off, the lighting was awful. It was incredibly grainy and it looked as if no professional lighting equipment was used and that they only utilized practical lighting. However, at one point I could tell they were flashing the lead actress with a cheap LED light when the actress was not directly under a streetlight while walking down the street, and this did not look good. All except maybe one or two of the shots in the entire film were handheld, which was a nice stylistic choice, but they were incredibly shaky and it was distracting. Some single shots would also last for 2-3 minutes and this production also completely disregarded the 180* rule. Despite the poor visual, at least the story and the music were entertaining. I would recommend only seeing 'Once' once.