Since seeing Norwegian director Bent Hamer’s quiet pleasure “O’Horten” at last year’s Starz Denver Film Festival, I’ve remained tickled by its title.
In part that’s because it sounds like an exasperated declaration, and there are moments in the tale of a freshly retired train engineer that invite an indulgent sigh. But also because the character’s name is actually Odd Horten.
Although the name is fairly common in Norway, writer-director Hamer was aware of how the word might resonate for American audiences.
We learn early that, oddly, there’s little overtly strange about Odd. After 40 years, the dedicated trainman is being forced to retire.
Cinematographer John Christian Rosenlund provides aerial shots of the train bisecting snowy countryside or wending its way out of a tunnel. Who, the images seem to ask, wouldn’t miss this? It’s beautiful, freeing.
All those decades knowing where he was headed, day in day out, seem behind Odd as he embarks on the little- known.
His first absurd adventure comes when he can’t get into to the apartment building where his co-workers are throwing a party. For a guy who has never socialized, his effort to get to the celebration is stubborn.
The film observes Odd as intently as he observes his world. His gift for witness is especially keen at a restaurant he frequents.
With his lined, imperturbable visage, Bard Owe wins us over, seemingly without exertion, as the spartan, solitary figure. In his interactions with a hotelkeeper (Henny Moan), he brightens, if ever so slightly.
In an unusual soul named Trygve (Espen Skjonberg), Odd finds a guide to bolder endeavors, riskier emotions. Retirement is not a job, granted. It can, however, be an adventure.
A tinkly then strings-enriched score by Norwegian recording artist Kaada maintains a mood at times lilting, other times steeped with a mortal sorrow. Odd visits his mother, a one-time ski jumper, in an assisted care facility. There’s aging of the sort Odd’s experiencing and then there’s this, the kind we all fear.
The whimsy is never overplayed. The peculiar isn’t teased at any character’s expense. Even a scene of Odd’s co-workers listening intently to audio of train whistles and station calls in a sort of name- that-line game is as revealing as it is amusing.
Written and directed by Bent Hamer; photography by John Christian Rosenlund; starring Bard Owe, Espen Skjonberg, Githa Norby, Bjorn Floberg, Kai Remlov, Henny Moan. In Norwegian with English subtitles. 90 minutes. Opens today at the Chez Artiste.
