Once

John Carney’s film -- about an Irish busker (Glen Hansard) called simply “the guy” and a Czech immigrant (Marketa Irglova) known only as “the girl” -- is thoroughly charming and enchanting, a rough-hewn but romantic musical dramedy. The guy and girl meet cute on the street in Dublin, with a low-key but hilarious bit of business involving a vacuum cleaner, and they proceed to make music, if not love, together. That’s it for 88 minutes, but that’s plenty. Much as in Richard Linklater’s great Before Sunrise, it’s a stripped-down story of two people learning how to communicate with each other. Music is a foreign land to me -- I sometimes like to visit, but don’t really understand the language -- but I had no trouble picking up the melody of faces in this film, even while missing many of the words. I look forward to seeing it again on dvd -- to take advantage of subtitles -- but even with gaps in understanding of dialogue or lyric, this is a film to love. (2007, Images, n.) *8* (MC-88.)