8. Once (2006)
Guy is a young busker on Grafton Street in Dublin. His existence isn't easy. He meets Girl - an unnamed Czech immigrant who is drawn to him because of his music. She finds out Guy repairs vacuum cleaners and she asks him to repair hers. Girl reveals she is a musician too. They jam together and then go to Guy's dad's shop with the broken cleaner. Guy invites Girl up to his room but she is offended by this and storms away. They soon make up and create music together. Guy is thinking about an old girlfriend who has moved to London, Girl invites him back to hers where he discovers she has a toddler and a hubby back in the Czech Republic. Guy is determined to go to London and after securing a loan, they make a demo. Herding a load of buskers into the studio to record, Guy and Girl begin to record songs which attract the attention of Eamon, the jaded studio manager. Once they have recorded their music, Guy and Girl must finally confront their feelings for each other in the face of Guy's move to London and Girl's husband coming to live in Ireland. Brimming with catchy tune after tune, Once has been given high critical praise and even caught the eye of Stephen Spielberg who said it gave him strength to go to the end of the year. Whatever that means. The director - John Carney - called the film a musical and the two leads of Glen Hansard (Guy) and Marketa Irglova (Girl) are professional musicians before they are actors and this adds a lot of naturalism and darn good music into the film. It is quite a poignant little number - Guy and Girl make fantastic music together but their relationship is doomed to remain platonic. Made in 17 days on a budget of 130,000 (75% of which was funded by the Irish Film Institute), Once is a fantastic exercise in low budget film making with a great story, charming soundtrack and inventiveness galore to transcend the minuscule amount of money it took to make. A very fine film indeed.