Customer Reviews

O'Horten

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This gorgeously filmed and exceedingly odd tale about a man named "Odd" is very slow moving and probably not a good choice for viewers operating in type A mode. It took me a good while to acclimate to its glacial pace, but I'm glad I finally did.

The movie is set in snow-covered Norway where Odd Horten, a train engineer and man of few words...very, very few words...is about to make his last run on the rails before retirement. Until now, Odd's life has been one of steady-as-he-goes routine, puffing on his pipe, tending to his parakeet, driving his train and visiting his unresponsive mother, the onetime ski jumper, at her nursing home. But now, suddenly, Odd's life is about to become very odd indeed: When he bypasses a locked door to gain access to his own retirement party, he somehow winds up in a strange apartment spending the night in a little kid's bedroom. When he tries to meet with the man who wants to buy his boat, he somehow winds up lost in the middle of an airport runway, with security on his tail. When he goes to get dressed after a swim and sauna, he finds that someone's made off with his boots, leaving him only a pair of bright red high heels to walk home in and, amazingly, they fit.

But it's only after Odd offers to hail a cab for a man lying prone on the sidewalk that things begin to get really really odd and...eventually and, of course, slowly....lead to a most satisfying ending. A great choice for something to watch while snowbound...or wishing you were.

(P.S. Anyone know why a story about someone named Odd Horten would be titled "O'Horten" and not "O. Horten"?)

If you loved Kitchen Stories, (Kitchen Stories (Original Swedish/ Norwegian Version with English Subtitles) Salmer fra kjøkkenet), you will love this film. I really loved O'Horten.

Oh this movie moves very slowly. Yes it most certainly plods along at it's own special pace. It is Norwegian, I don't think things move very quickly in Norway in the winter. The story is about Odd Horten (yes his name is Odd - I presume a perfectly normal name in Norwegian) a train engineer that is about to retire after decades of perfect service. He is a boring man, does things exactly the same all the time, full of routine. He is also a very quiet humble person. The director places Odd in strange situations that make him leave his routine.

The cinematography is remarkable. In an early scene, Odd is sitting in the engineer's seat of the train, he's framed by an unusual diamond shape. Later when he is talking with the hotel owner, somebody we sense has more than just a hotel / client relationship with Odd, she is very carefully framed in a cabinet that resembles the train. Subtle moments like this happen throughout the film. It's a small technique that adds so much power to the film. The pacing is just so perfect, slow and methodical. The director never presses forward too quickly; he also never repeats the punch line or key moment or speaks past that moment. I loved the timing. The sets were spartan, reflecting the simple routine life of Odd. Things get much more complicated near the end of the film when he meets a friend; his house is full of clutter.

The director Bent Hamer is simply wonderful. There is a wonderful similarity and style with Kitchen Stories (1950's Norway, efficiency experts sat in Norwegian kitchens on a high chair and observed and recorded all the movements of the cook). It is the rare director that doesn't have to fill every minute with action, which can take their time to tell a story.

The film is rated PG-13, the MPAA must be less restrictive in a good way. The rating kind of surprised me given a scene with full frontal male and female nudity. One scene is through an underwater pool window, and is fairly innocent - three people swim by. The other is a male in a sauna; nothing strange in Norway, but a bit odd in the US. I am not contending that the film should be anything but this rating, parents might like to know there are a couple of scenes. There's no violence, strong language, or horrible psychological drama.

The film is presented in Norwegian with English subtitles. There is no English sound track. In addition to a few previews, the DVD includes an interview with the director. It appears this interview is some kind of Norwegian television program or a meet the director night in a night club somewhere. The program is called Blatt Larrett. The two men sit at a table in front of some awful blue background and they wear these awful headset microphones (like the black microphones Madonna used a long time ago). Well the interview is 10 minutes and the Bent Hamer never seems to answer any questions. It is a huge waste of 10 minutes.

I enjoyed this film very much. It is slow. The acting is deliberate. The scenery is sparse. But there is a heart in this film and something very strong.

"O' Horten" (2007), Norway's official submission for Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, follows a 67-year-old quiet train driver Odd Horten (Baard Owe) and the people (some of them very strange) he encounters before and after his retirement. The slow and leisurely pace of the film won't be to everyone's taste, but the quirky tone, off-center humor and life-affirming attitudes of the film will appeal to some of the film fans. Perhaps you never saw this bizarre scene of people literally sliding down the street in the cold night of Oslo.

Meet Odd Horten, a pipe-smoking train driver of Norway's Bergen Express. He has been working for the railroad company more than 40 years and he is going to retire this week. On the last day of his job, however, he makes a terrible mistake. He is late for the train. Running impulsively away from the platform (on which he watches his train leaving), Mr. Horten meets people he would not have expected to meet before.

The film is directed by Bent Hamer, whose previous works include "Kitchen Stories and "Factotum," the latter starring Matt Dillon. In his newest film "O' Horten" the Norwegian director has put together a string of apparently unrelated events to suggest our laconic protagonist's past and future. Who is the old landlady at the inn where Horten stays? What happened between him and her? Or what will happen? Everything is open to our imagination.

The film is episodic, and like any episodic films, its pace occasionally lags, but be patient as some episodes (the widow at the tobacco shop, for instance) are really touching. The photography is beautiful, but I am afraid the night shots are sometimes too dark. Again I say this is not a film for everyone, but is recommended for anyone interested in more subdued approach to humor, as well as life, past and future.

.... unless you're Scandinavian. No, limit that to Norwegian or Swedish, or Minnesotan. Even a Dane wouldn't crack a smile at most of the quirky humor of "O'Horten". But it doesn't matter so much. It isn't really a comedy, though it's advertised as such. It's a wry, tender lament about getting old ... or wait! perhaps it's a deliberate propaganda ploy from the welfare state intended to discourage workers from retirement before they've become decrepit and senile! What is there for old Odd Horten, forty years a railroad engineer, to do with himself on his modest pension except to contemplate the things he's never had the nerve or the means to do? Horten is gentle, reserved, reliable, stiff, meek, an observer rather than a partaker. His health is good. His mother is still alive, probably in her nineties, a one-time ski jumper, now a placid wordless window-sitter in an old folks' home, whom Horten visits faithfully, lovingly. Horten seems never to have married; he is scarcely more alone after retirement than he's always been, but he has more occasion to notice his loneliness.

"O'Horten" is beautifully acted. Beautifully filmed. Heart-achingly real, slow and still, yet concisely edited. Old age is also mostly slow and still but not so artfully edited. You won't enjoy it much but you'll find it touching. Old age, I mean, not the movie. The movie has to be viewed as art, not entertainment.

The actor who plays Horten has a face with more wrinkles than a field of cracked lava. Horten is supposed to be sixty-seven years old. One year younger than I am. Scary. I'll be shaving without a mirror tomorrow morning.

If you are seriously into the shoot `em up bang, bang type movies, this isn't for you. O'Horton (2007, Norway) is a slow paced film with little more than subtle humor picked up only if you search for it. There is a quiet soundtrack and dialogue is minimal. The cinematography of the train racing through the cold snow sets the mood.

Odd Horton is 67 years old and has worked as train engineer for 40 years. It seems his latest years have been more on the lonely side away from his work. He is a quite, reserved man with little to say, and with very little facial movement. His longtime position has kept him socially inept, a mundane life always on schedule. Now it is time for his retirement and his colleagues are honoring him. He is clearly uncomfortable being honored, and he seems puzzled by the small token of appreciation for 40 years - the "silver locomotive."

However, like many newly retired people, Odd struggles at the human side of life more than some would. He remains confused and unfamiliar at everyday existence. The world outside engineering trains is foreign, but he manages to connect with the quirky interesting people on his way to conform to the world of retirement.

This is writer, producer, and director Bent Hamer's fifth movie to play in the States, while many may be familiar with the delightful Kitchen Stories, Factotum and not sure if available here, Eggs. It is easy to see some similarites to Kitchen Stories.

One recurring theme with Hamer's movies is "old people" and Hamer, takes on another risk with a retired old man. Hamer said he has always been interested in old people when he was young, especially his grandparents. Like Odd Horton's mother, who was once a ski jumper, Hamer dedicated the film to his mother and all female ski jumpers.

O'Horton is a gentle quiet film that may leave viewers with a few unanswered questions, but it is worth the watch. There is brief, but sparse nudity. See it....Rizzo

My review title, I hope, answers a query I saw in a another review.

This rather tired genre at first delighted me--it reminded me how Japanese films from the 1960s are so similar to the Norwegian and Swedish stuff. No wonder the tags are so confused...I mean, after all, this could very well be a film about a Kazhakstani camel-driver who retires to the Ukraine!

But the Norwegians, who strike me as almost Vulcan-like (cheap "Star Trek" reference) are far too weird and placid for my taste. Example: in America, a man would not break and enter one place just to get to another place...then sit and visit with the child of the house, as occurs in this film. In the end, Norwegian film is at its most annoying when it is trying to be funny or slick.

Now to the delicately beautiful about this film: the lead actor is a knockout. I haven't seen him before, but his pal "Flo" played the priest in the 1990s film "Hotten", known in English as "Bloody Angels". The lead is like a marriage between Sir Ian McKellen and Wyatt Earp. He's shy, quiet and reserved, has a quiet sweetheart he seems to want to marry, and visits his mother at the nursing home, dutifully. He's like an overgrown child, which it seems to me most Norwegians like to play in film.

As a pipe smoker, I found the lead's love and need for the security blanket of his "Lillehammer" brand pipe most endearing. It's hilarious when he goes into the store, then like a frightened steer about to go to slaughter, he freaks a bit because the old proprietor isn't there in the tobacco shop--it's his widow.

Once Odd (Bard Owe), our hero, knows who she is and sees that she is knowledgeable, Odd tells her why he's there and he gets his new pipe. Significantly, he abandons it near the end of the film: it's no longer a security blanket and he no longer seems to need it.

The ice storm and its consequences--the storm that hits while Odd is out for a few drinks is so hilarious I leave it to the viewer as a surprise.

Don't be shocked by the silence; there are probably about 25 speaking lines in this film total. Norwegians like their pretty pictures and beautiful cinematography, but they don't seem to like dialogue. In the Norwegian films I have seen throughout my life, I notice all the players seem quite angry when they have to speak lines.

So, be ready for a somewhat amusing, not too deep, meditational yet clichéd genre here. I took away one star for all of the above negative observations, and for one last thing: I don't want to have to pay more than $15 for a DVD of a film like this.

That's what it would cost me to get a new Weber pipe!

O'HORTEN is so un-American...and so real I can taste it. It makes me want to watch "I Remember Mama" all over again. Remember Dagmar? Baard Owe as Norwegian train conductor Odd O'Horten is perfect in every way. His deadpan expression is both hilarious and sad at the same time. Of course I can related to him because I am a 67 year old Amtrak conductor who can't afford to retire and often regrets things I haven't tried. I work with an engineer from Sweden whose mother suffers from the same mental condition as Odd's. I can't wait to share this dvd with him.

The scenes of the train dashing through the snow are flawless.

Thank you Bent Hamer for a superb experience.

This is a beautiful gemstone, yet again done by the wonderful Norwegians. The cinematography is amazing. The music by Kado is amazing. The acting is simple and amazing. It is a little slow moving..but I think you have to understand the plot: This man's life career has ended...so life is slow. He's not on the train anymore. If you love good films, you best order this immediately. PLUS, the price is amazing. When I purchased this, it was $20. So feel lucky when you buy it :)

O Horten depicts a persons attempt to cope with retirement. Odd Horten is a train engineer and has been driving for many years, always punctual and bound by routine fails to arrive on time for his last train ride. Faced with retirement he wanders aimlessly trying to make a sense of the void that retirement has left him with and in the process encounters many odd characters. These meetings and his interaction form the basis of the movie. The mood of the movie is pretty melancholy and remains that way from the beginning to the end. There are many situations where I thought the action was going to get interesting but did not. The director has tried to show the sadness of a retired man without a family and he certainly succeeds but without the emotional grip. I liked the photography and especially the first scene when Odd is driving the train through a frozen land. Beautiful....The movie was not just not that great for me. I gave it two stars. 2/22/10

Very slow moving and subtle film that depends on the quirkiness of its characters to make the viewing experience meaningful. Although there are some intermittently amusing moments, this movie unfolds at a snail-like pace and requires a good deal of patience. Which is unfortunately hard to come by in today's fast-moving society.