Once

This morning I woke up with a song playing in my head. I must have a dream, but by then the dream was lost. Like entering a movie theater where the movie had end but the sound track kept playing, I tried to put back the story by the song I heard. It evoked a sense of yearning, the smell of the sea, the feel of rain dropped on your face, taste slight salted. (How wonderful the human brain works.) The dream was hopelessly gone, but I realized where I had heard the song. It was at the end of the movie "Once".

To many film critics, "Once" is on their top 10 best movie list of 2007 (and Bob Dylan is a huge fan). It's not hard to see why. Like "Before Sunrise", it is a love story where the boy and the girl met for a short time then each headed life their own way. (You probably have seen these stories so many times in real life and have one of your own.) It is plain, yet it has a kind of truthfulness and authenticity a Hollywood love story never able to create. But that's not enough. A plain movie can be boring. What save the story (and distinguish it from the others) are the songs composed by the actors themselves. (It won the 2008 Oscar for best original film music.)

But don't rush to download the soundtrack yet. For what is a song without the story? Watch it. It will be the 85 minutes you remember forever, even in your subconscious.