The Swell Season

My WE music feature this week is a review of The Swell Season.

The Swell Season

Credit: Supplied

MUSIC: Breaking up is hard to do in ‘The Swell Season’

Posted By: Andrea Warner

Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová made beautiful music together as will-they-or-won’t-they indie folk-rock musicians in 2006’s Once. Fans connected to the sweet, earnest story of the older Irish busker and the young Czech immigrant pianist, and couldn’t help but notice that the film also captured the pair falling in love off screen as well.

And, as it happens, another set of cameras captured their story as they fell out of love, in the intimate and engaging documentary, The Swell Season.

After Once earned Hansard and Irglová an Academy Award for Best Original Song, the musicians formed their own band, the Swell Season, and took to the road, touring and toiling under their new-found fame. The film opens when the couple are still happy: silly, stripping down for a midday skinny dip into the ocean; posing for pictures and hanging out with fans; enjoying their time together.
But, as Hansard says, “It’s strangely prophetic. You’re singing songs about break-ups in a perfectly happy relationship, and you’re like, this isn’t about me. But then it happens.”

The cameras capture a series of moments that on their own wouldn’t signify the couple’s undoing. Strung together though, it’s like a series of stress fractures on a single bone: Irglová’s discomfort with the implied demands of fame; glimpses of Hansard’s depression as his father dies from alcoholism; the 18-year age gap between them as Irglová grows up and stops, in her own words, simply adopting Hansard’s opinions and starts developing her own. The narrative moves towards an inevitable conclusion, but it’s no less heartbreaking when we finally arrive at the five-minute long argument between the two that shows just how far they’ve grown apart.

But the filmmakers, wisely, err on the more hopeful side of bittersweet as the film draws to a close. The pair take to the stage in front of a theatre full of fans, and Irglová offers an earnest and charmingly awkward intro to a song about how sometimes love isn’t mean to be right now, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t worthwhile or won’t be again. Hansard says, with a catch in his voice, that the breakup has brought them closer. Is it true? Well, who knows. But The Swell Season’s final moments — Hansard performs a solo on stage while Irglova watches from the wings, probably for the thousandth time, with an admiring and affectionate smile on her face — give us plenty of hope that this isn’t the end of the story.

The Swell Season plays at Vancity Theatre (1181 Seymour), Fri-Sat 8:45pm; Sun, Tues 8:30pm. Tickets and info: VIFF.org.

Once

The March issue of Discorder hits the streets today. I have four pieces in it, so I thought I'd post one a day, saving the biggest one for last: my profile with Elias.

Once Film Review
By Andrea Warner

Once is the rarest of musicals, simultaneously rooted in possibility, reality and fantasy: the busker-by-day/vacuum-repair-by-night guy meets “cute” with the girl who rolls her Hoover behind her and happens to be a brilliant piano player. Thus begins their shyly innocent courtship making music together.

The “guy” is Glen Hansard, lead singer of the Frames, and the “girl” is Markéta Irglová, our leads who must navigate new terrain as their friendship blossoms, fueled by creativity and the possible spark of something more. Irglová’s face is young but wise, and the depth of her smile endears her to the camera. Hansard is older, not necessarily wiser, but he conveys his world-weariness without a bitter tinge. He’s lost, but he’s still hopeful, and this is what draws the two together.

Our heroine tries to take care of her daughter and her mother, with no sign of the husband to whom she’s bound. Our hero deals with his failings: his girlfriend has left him, his music career is stalled, and he’s living over his father’s repair shop. Hansard and Irglová’s chemistry is sweet and powerful, and watching the push-pull between them is breathtakingly sad. It may have helped that the professional musicians, but untrained actors, happened to actually fall in love during the three-week filming.

Set in Dublin, and directed by John Carney (once a member of the Frames, himself), Once is a testament to the power of a cheaply made great film trumping a bloated, big budget flick any day. Tight close ups, hand held cameras, and natural lighting helps create a feeling of intimacy and emotional investment.

Once’s real charm is the music. With the majority written by Hansard and Irglová, the songs are perfect fodder to relay the hidden feelings and deeper desires of these emotional and impassioned characters. The pair even scored an Oscar nomination for “Falling Slowly”, the beautiful song of yearning that sets the entire film in motion. Hansard and Irgová’s voices are powerfully contrasted: his desperate growl buoyed by her gentle urging as they crescendo like waves breaking on the beach.

As the audience is invited inside the process of writing songs, crafted through give and take, it feels like the moments reach well beyond the celluloid. We’re privy to the most secret of rituals—watching a relationship being built from the ground up note by note.