The Swell Season
DIRECTORS: Nick August-Perna, Chris Dapkins, Carlo Mirabella-Davis
STARRING: Glen Hansard, Markéta Irglová
Seventh Art Releasing
RELEASE DATE: October 21, 2011 (limited)

Everyone has those movies they have a certain kind of special attachment to””movies that moved them, that struck an emotional chord, and left a lasting imprint.

For me, one of those movies was 2006’s Once, which tells the story of musician known only as “Guy” who works at his dad’s vacuum repair shop and makes a little extra coin by singing his songs on the streets of Ireland, and the young Czech girl he meets one day (fittingly dubbed “Girl”) who sells flowers and is also a musician. The two form a strong bond through their music and common troubles they have with former lovers, but, as they go on to collaborate on some incredible music together, each is unsure what it is they want in life and for their futures.

It’s a wonderful little story, and the fact that the film’s stars, Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová, are real musicians with little to no acting backgrounds whatsoever only adds to its charm. But it’s not really so much about the movie as it is the music. All the heart and soul of Once, the burning fire that fuels the story, it comes from its beautiful and eventual Oscar–winning music. And that’s why it’s a movie that is so important to me personally.

If you’ve never seen the indie hit Once, it’s a movie you simply have to see before you die. It’s a beautiful film with one of the greatest soundtracks ever made that tells the story of two musicians falling in love despite the complications in each of their own lives making things very difficult. And the reason the soundtrack is so good is because the two stars of Once, Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova, aren’t actors at all but actually very talented musicians, who were each awarded an Academy Award for their music in the film.

What those of you who have seen Once might not know, however, is that a real–life romance sparked and faded between the two and a new musical venture called The Swell Season was born.

Now it’s time for that story to be told in the new musical documentary also titled The Swell Season, which is making the festival rounds. You can see the trailer below now!

NOTE: For structural reasons and to ensure that this list is super-duper pretty at all times, we’ll be posting this same intro for all sections of The Decade List. If you’ve already read all of this, you can just head down to the continuation of our list!

Let’s just get it out of the way right off the ol’ bat: yes, we know it’s been a few months since we left the decade. Most folks undertook this heavy task pre-2010, but we decided that it would be a little bit better to let the new year settle in a bit before hitting you with something of this magnitude.

So here we are, geeks: we’ve officially arrived in FUTURE *cue retro ’50s sci-fi music* and still we have no freakin’ flying cars yet. What’s the deal with that? While it is pretty exciting to be inside of the year 2010 — a year that always seemed unreachable to us mere mortals — we are also exiting another entire decade that leaves us staring at one majorly epic task. That task? To search, dig, locate, retrieve, organize, polish, and present the very best films of the past ten years!

We must once again declare that this list is also simply opinion. You are are without doubt going to find movies here that you hate and do not think deserve to be included. You will surely think of movies that you think should not only be on here, but that should be at the very top of the list. There will even be some that I have not seen and thus, can not add. Even at this very moment, I sit, worrying and wondering if I’ve forgotten any that I would include; that’s just the way things fly when compiling something this massive.

With all of that said, we invite you in to relax and check out our Final Chapter of The Decade List: The 59 Best Films of the Past Ten Years!