Speaking of Czechoslovakia (or more properly these days, the Czech Republic), I recently rented, and thoroughly enjoyed, the low-budget Irish musical "Once," which was a hit at Sundance 2007.

The story concerns a (male) Dublin busker who meets a young (female) Czech immigrant who turns out to be a fellow musician. Their flirtation does not lead to romance, but to a strong musical relationship. She likes the songs he writes, accompanies him on piano and vocal harmonies, and they quickly recruit three additional band members to record a demo before heading off on the their separate ways ~ all in less than a week's time.

The main characters do not have names; they're listed in the credits as "The Guy," "The Girl," "Guy's Father," Girl's Mother," etc.

If you like the music, you'll like the film ~ and I liked it all. It's not folk music ~ indeed, when they appoach the prospective bandmates, they are asked, "What is it? Singer/songwriter crap?" The Guy replies, "Yeah, it's singer/songwriter stuff," and the Girl quickly interjects "But it's very good!"

I don't always play the commentaries and all the extra features that come with DVDs, but I did so for this one. The writer/director used to be a musician himself, and in fact was a member of a band headed by Glenn Hansard, who plays the leda (The Guy) in this film.

He made a great deal in his commentary about the low-budget aspect of the film, including how nicely his players fulfilled their roles in spite of "not being actors," but musicians pretty much playing themselves.

I thought this was pretty disingenuous, since (like many viewers) I instantly recognized Hansard from his earlier major movie role as "Outspan," lead guitar player in The Commitments. He's just a little older now, with a tighter haircut. Now, I'll concede that when that earlier film was made, none of the players had prior acting experience, and also that Glen Hansard has probably not acted since then ~ but he was not exactly a novice at this filmmaking business when they started work on "Once."