Before the typhoon Young people in a public training center prepare for exams in special booths, gradually fall asleep and have dreams. Of course, about love.
They say that 80% of communication takes place on a non-verbal level. In the film, at least half of the communication between the girl Xining and the soldier Tsung takes place in a dream. Sleep becomes a place of real rest. There, without worrying about work, military service, you can calmly assess your state of mind, express your innermost hopes and dreams. And then when you wake up, make the right decision.
But all the charm of the dream world is that the characters do not always realize whether it is a dream or a reality, do not always correctly relate themselves in real time and themselves in a dream. This is skillfully emphasized by the minimalism of images in a dream: a ship in the middle of an empty sea, a quiet night, three people in a cabin. In reality, the heroes prepare for the typhoon, bear the hardships of army life and suffer a shipwreck. But in a dream, vanity disappears, prompting them to open up to each other.
The situation of sleep seems to express the deep mood of the heroes. If two souls are attuned to the same thing, as if on the same radio station, their worlds will resonate, giving birth to the universe of shared sleep. Such a dream is not an escape from reality, but something that helps to bond and develop relationships in reality.
I want to note with what care the director touches the love story, as if afraid to destroy it with an extra scene or even a replica. Unsaid becomes a sign of deep thinking of the film.
The theme of sleep, extremely fertile for filmmakers as creators of all kinds of dreams, in "Once" acquires such a bright romantic shade, which I really want to include in my daily life.
8 out of 10
Original