Ceticultsot
Beautiful, moving film.
Grimossfer
Clever and entertaining enough to recommend even to members of the 1%
InformationRap
This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.
Izzy Adkins
The movie is surprisingly subdued in its pacing, its characterizations, and its go-for-broke sensibilities.
SnoopyStyle
Odd Horton is dependable and cautious Norwegian train engineer facing retirement. His fellow train workers throw him a big retirement party. He gets locked out of his own party and tries to sneak back in climbing up a scaffolding. He finds a boy who asks him to stay while he sleeps. He oversleeps and misses his train. It's a series of disjointed rambling situations leading him to reconsider his life. As a character, Odd Horten lacks any charisma. It starts off slowly. When it turns strange, the movie lost me. I would rather it go crazy. I couldn't really follow him down the rabbit hole. The movie is well-made and it aims to be profound. I don't hate the attempt but it's not for me.
Peter Brooks
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!
druid333-2
Hey gang! If you like your movie entertainment with non stop car chases,lots & lots of explosions (stuff being blown up),big breasted blonde's being stereotyped as the usual airheads,lots of toilet humour, not to mention everybody's favourite "F" word being dropped every line of dialog...then by all means, stay away from 'O'Horten'. That aside, this is a very well written,directed & acted film from Norway that is a gentle fable of getting your groove later in life. Odd Horten is a railway conductor who has been driving the trains in Norway for some forty years now,and is one excursion away from retiring & living the good life (whatever that is). After missing out on an evening of merriment with his former co-workers,due to the fact that he ended up locked out of the flat where the party was to take place. From then on, life becomes a series of scenes (some funny,some not so,some down right surreal),that is supposed to bring Odd out of the forty year stupor that his regimented life was. All of this heads for an ending that will take you by surprise (if you think all Scandanavian films are brooding,moody,introspective meditations on existentialism,guess again). Bent Hamer (who directed the very funny & very tongue in cheek 'Kitchen Stories'from a few years back),writes & directs from his original screenplay of a man who is just learning life is not just all about work,work & more work. Baard Owe (star of many a Norwegian film for both the cinema,as well as Norwegian television)takes on the role of Odd Horten,played as deadpan as one can. The rest of the cast are made up of top notch Norwegian actors who do what they do best. This is a film that will charm the birdies out of the trees. Rated PG-13 by the MPAA for flashes of brief nudity & some mild adult content.
M A
This is a film unique and intriguing in its own special way. The apparent lack of emotions of the story indeed tells of so many emotions and speaks so many words unspoken. The interactions of Odd with other eccentric people on his retirement night indeed reflect his inner feelings of eagerness for a new start on one hand and his unpreparedness for loss of his routines on the other. The human interactions in the film are portrayed in such a frank and pure way that the whole film is filled with a subtle warmness despite the snowy streets of Oslo. By breaking away from the "rails" that had rooted him to the ground for so many years and by embarking on a new stage of life, Odd finally has the time to redeem, rediscover, and to reappraise, and to finally live a life without pre-set rails and tracks. A very warm, touching and enchanting piece of work which is at times surreal and at all times unique. It may be short of words sometimes but is never short of a uniquely human touch.