User Reviews

There is no more appropriate a name for the lead role in Bent Hamer's film O'Horten then Odd Horten. For a man of modesty, generally hiding in the corners of life to avoid much interaction or attention, he finds himself in the middle of some very odd happenings, all in a matter of a few days following his retirement. After 40 some years as a locomotive engineer in Norway, his age has hit the year for a mandatory moving on, celebrated with a fun rendition of a train picking up speed by the twenty or so engineers surrounding him at a farewell dinner—complete with their left arms working as the clamps on the wheels and their right hands thumping their chests. But that oddity is just the beginning of his crazy adventure, one that finds him settling down in the one place he has ever been truly happy. Odd doesn't smile very often, so when he does, you know it's genuine.

Hamer has crafted a short little love note to his mother with this film … it is dedicated to her memory. A woman ski jumper, something frowned upon if not allowed at all in the country in the past, a doppelganger for her is included as Horten's own mother, old and mute in convalescence home. Her bravery and willingness to do what pleased her comes through in our hero's trek across Norway, learning along the way that it is never too late to try something new. Being that this man has led a life consisting of probably the exact same activities each and every day, the decision to join his fellow engineers after his goodbye party will unknowingly open up his eyes. With a routine seeing him wake up, smoke his pipe, go to work, visit his mother, and enjoy the company of Svea, a woman who runs a place at the end of his line, watching his attempt to enter an apartment complex under construction shows his indifference to obstacles in his way—he just never had a reason to leap over them until now.

Bård Owe portrays Odd with a very quiet effectiveness. The entire film is quite methodical in its unraveling and always focuses on this 67-year-old gentleman, a man of few words. With so many moments devoid of sound, seeing only Owe's expression, you will definitely learn to know this man and what he stands for. It is a nuanced performance and expressive in its lack of expression. So much craziness occurs in the days we see and yet he just goes with it all, escaping when necessary—and it often is. From the night of the party, being trapped in a stranger's apartment by a little boy who wants to be sat with until falling asleep, (Odd of course doesn't open his own eyes until the next morning where he must hide under the bed to not be discovered by the boy's father and then sneak out the door), to staying after hours in the gymnasium sauna and deciding to take a late night skinny dip, (where a couple of young ladies end up having the same thought), and needing to leave quickly in women's heeled shoes, Horten is out of his element indeed.

For being only ninety minutes in length, the film does seem to drag a bit. This isn't a problem by any means, just an observation and caution to any prospective viewers. With little action, O'Horten is a character driven story through and through. The camera follows Odd around as he tries to pass the time of retirement, finding it is much harder than he could have imagined. But it is just quirky enough to become invested to see exactly where it will all lead. There are some genuinely surreal moments, like that of a businessman sliding down a hilled street after the fall of frozen rain while Odd holds on tight to a pole so as not to fall, and some lovely revelations, like of who Trygve Sissener really is, (a very intriguing fellow played by Espen Skjønberg that is discovered sleeping in the street as though a bum, yet in possession of a large house in Oslo). Even a journey to find an acquaintance named Flo, Bjørn Floberg, is a sight to experience because its relatively straightforward task to sell his boat becomes one of multiple metal detectors at the airport, a cavity search, and a human scavenger hunt he tried to avoid right from the start.

The camera-work is nice, including some memorable moments, the one that stuck with me being an overhead view of an Oslo intersection as Odd waits for the police to claim his recently deceased friend, to which he then slowly makes his way down the road, avoiding any unnecessary conversation as usual. In what is probably the most exciting three days of his life, it becomes apparent to him that life is too short—ironic being that he is almost seventy upon this revelation, but true nonetheless. He knows that his mother was disappointed he never followed her passion for ski jumping, but the years kept passing and he still had not taken the plunge. Sometimes it takes an unexpected arrest, trespassing on private property, driving down a street blind, and for once not showing up for work to finally awaken to the endless possibilities of life. Odd discovers that it is never too late, and if this stoic, loner of a man can find adventure, then anyone can. If the door is locked, maybe you have to climb up the scaffolding; sometimes you just have to be willing to take the chance.

Odd Horten, a Norweian train operator, is doing his last trip at the helm of his locomotive. The trip will take him from Oslo to Bergen through the snowed countryside that seems to go on forever. Horten arrives at the inn where he has stayed during his years doing the route. Fro Thorgensen, the woman in charge, asks Horten if this is the end, which makes us think he had been having a long affair with her when he overnights in her place. Being a man of a few words, he does not have an answer to her question.

Odd's friends from the railroad get together that night to celebrate his retirement with a dinner at a restaurant where they go through routines they have enjoyed during his years of working for the railroad. Odd is impassive to what his buddies are trying to do to celebrate his many years at work. Later, they decide to go to the apartment of one of the people at the party. Horten gets separated from the group, but he is given the code to enter the building. When he return from buying his pipe tobacco, he cannot get in. Not knowing what to do, he decides to go up via the scaffolding outside the building. Unfortunately, he gets into a stranger's apartment, where a young boy holds him up by his side, not letting him go. Odd oversleeps and is late for his return trip.

In Oslo, Odd goes to visit his mother, an avid skier, now living at a senior's home. The woman does not utter a word, but listens to her son intently. One day, Odd coming out of a tobacco shop, finds a man that is laying on the ground next to the streetcar's rail. He manages to get him up, and it turns out he is Trigve Sissener, a former Norwegian ambassador who had a long career in Africa and Indochina. The grateful Trigve asks him to go home. The men fall into an easy conversation as the doctor shows and tells stories about his years abroad. Giving a lift home, Trigve offers to drive with his eyes closed. Odd is not too happy, but goes along, trusting his newly found friend's instincts. Odd is shocked when the car comes to a complete stop at a curve, realizing Trigve suffered a massive heart attack.

Odd Horten had regretted the fact that he was not a skier, like his mother. He always wanted to do one ski jump from one of the runs not far from the city. Going back to Trigve's place, where he saw a pair of skis, he goes in and retrieves the equipment for his jump. Coming out of the house he meets a man who turns out to be the real Trigve. Odd overcomes his fears and jumps. The next thing we see is Odd going to Bergen to Fru Thorgensen, who is waiting for him.

"Odd Horten" conceived and directed by Bent Hamer, is a deadpan comedy where not much happens, and yet, it holds our attention. Like his previous film, "Factotum" and "Kitchen Stories", the director shows a knack for making everyday occurrences interesting. With Odd Horten, he created a stoic man that has gone with the flow, never doing anything out of the ordinary. Suddenly, as he has reached retirement age, he suddenly wakes up, no doubt a bit shaken by watching a new friend die in front of his eyes and begins living, for a change.

The excellent Bard Owe is Odd Horten. An actor that conveys a lot with an economy of gesture, he is perfect as the man whose life has passed him by. Equally good is Esken Skjonberg, seen as Trigve Sissener. The supporting cast does a marvelous job for the director.

The consensus here at IMDb seems to be that this is a fine effort and I'll go along with that. Because I know nothing of Norway, the Norwegian people and/or culture it would be reasonably easy to go along with the surreal aspects of Bent Hamer's film and take it at face value but common sense kicks in and says that it is unlikely in the extreme that so many odd balls would cross the path of Odd Horten in so short a time. On the plus side there is no attempt to rationalise (for example) the young boy who, far from being fazed to find a strange old man outside his bedroom, asks the man to sit with him until he falls asleep - this, of course, in a world where we see paedophiles under the bed. If, however, you can get past this then you will think nothing of the chef being led away in handcuffs in front of diners in a restaurant followed by the waiter announcing 'for obvious reasons I will not be taking any further orders for food' and life just going on. These are but two slightly bizarre moments in a film studded with them so you can take it or leave it. For the record I took it.

I think the first thing to note about this engrossing story is that you'll almost certainly have to watch the film twice in order to get close to the full picture. Things that don't make sense the first time around suddenly take on more meaning the second time.

It's like a chef's specialty dish in which the flavours are so subtle that if you try to wolf the food down you'll miss everything (as clearly one reviewer has). It has to be savoured to get the best from it. With food you can do that - hold it on your palate as the flavours work their way through to your senses; with visual storytelling you have to go through the story more than once to get the same effect.

The second thing to note is that this is a character study of a classic avoidant personality. Nothing too severe, but just enough to make a man appear to be buttoned down (as a former pipe smoker, I can attest that if you're a neat freak you won't touch a pipe) as he appears to meander through his life, having things happen *to* him rather than making them happen. Until the end scenes Horten is an observer of his own existence rather than an active participant in it.

His tendency to avoid certain situations, to be backward in coming forward, to avoid the limelight, is not set in stone, though. There are times when he acts against character - for example, when he climbs the scaffolding as he tries to attend a continuation of his retirement party at another engineer's apartment, since the apartment building's front door will not open when he keys in the correct access code.

His interaction with the young Nordahl (if I'm not mistaken, the two young lads in the apartment scene are played by Bent Hamer's relatives - possibly grandsons?) steps gingerly around the edge of what could otherwise have been a potentially very unpleasant situation had it been discovered by the parents - an elderly stranger in a bedroom with two young boys. These days one immediately jumps to a negative interpretation of the scene, sadly.

The movie has a dream-like quality, peppered with inexplicable events and people that give it just enough meat on the bone to make you go "Huh?" at fairly regular intervals.

Little things like the arrest of the chef by undercover police officers, the lesbian swimming pool attendants who frolic once the place is closed, the loss of Odd's shoes in the same place so that he ends up wearing a pair of red high-heeled boots (presumably belonging to one of the attendants; one assumes that they discovered his shoes and placed them in Lost & Found), the customer at the tobacconist's who repeatedly returns because he keeps losing his matches (through the window at one point you see him fall outside the shop, offering at least one plausible explanation as to why he keeps losing them), even the gentleman sliding down a sloping street on his rear, still clutching his briefcase, as the freezing rain coating every surface claims another victim.

The film is a mosaic of such odd vignettes - some of which, as others have mentioned, are worth watching alone, such as the trials Odd undergoes in order to locate his friend Flo. How many of us have had to go through a rectal exam in order to see a pal? The neat twist involving the schizophrenic inventor was a very nice touch. Nothing too dramatic (such as the eye-gouging in the French classic, Betty Blue (aka 37°2 le matin)) but just enough to provide a reason for irrational behaviour that allows Odd to take another step or two towards what for him is almost certainly the light at the end of his own personal tunnel.

The elderly lady he visits in the nursing home - his mother, Vera - appears to have mild dementia, and this may be a factor that plays into Odd's subsequent decisions when he reaches fork after fork in the road unfolding ahead of him. His decision to make a jump on stolen skis (in the dark yet) almost certainly stems from the sudden realisation that he may reach a point in his life where he too can only sit in silence looking out of a window in a nursing home, so now might be a good time to do the things he has not dared to for the best part of his 67 years.

All in all a very enjoyable story, with excellent, first rate acting by everyone involved. It takes more skill IMHO to impart the subtler emotions than it does to create the never-ending wham-bam-shoot-em-up-chase-em-down-screaming-and-yelling scenes that fill today's action/adventures (not that I don't enjoy those too).

This is one that I will definitely be adding to my home collection if I can. Godt gjort, Bent!

O'Horten is another great film by Bent Hamer, of which I really loved watching Eggs and not to mention Salmer fra kjøkkenet (Kitchen stories). It's superb storytelling without lots of noise, and with great and quiet use of humor.

In O'Horten there are some great moments which sets an impression on you. Like when someone steels Hortens boots while secretly night bathing in an indoor swimming pool. He finds a solution which i s just hilarious. Like taken from a classic Pink Panther movie.

So is the meeting with the old guy, inviting Horten to drive blindfolded in the downtown streets of Oslo in the middle of the night. You'll be glad you never was out in the streets, and you'll never forget it.

The film deserves a large audience. I hear the film has been sold to a lot of countries for cinema screening, among them, not usual for a Norwegian flick, the USA.