O'Horten

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Title
O'Horten
Producing Organization
WBEZ
Contributing Organization
WBEZ (Chicago, Illinois)
AAPB ID
cpb-aacip/50-4298smb4
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Description
Description
" Film contributor, Milos Stehlik tells us about Brent Hamer's Norwegian feature, O'Horten . For a movie which is character driven, I can't think of a film which is more dry, more minimalist, than Brent Hamer's Norwegian feature, O'Horten . O'Horten belongs to the cinema genre developed by Hamer's Scandinavian compatriots, Aki Kaurismaki and more specifically, the wonderful Swedish filmmaker Roy Andersson. Andersson's films like Songs from the Second Floor and You the Living are genuine, small masterpieces deserving to be more widely known and appreciated. O'Horten also harks back to comic anti-heroes like Jacques Tati's M.Hulot or Buster Keaton. O'Horten is also a perfect senior citizen movie, because its protagonist Odd (that's Horten's first name), is about to retire after 40 years as a locomotive engineer. He is methodical, non-effusive and never smiles. He smokes a pipe. You may chuckle only once or twice watching this movie, but you'll quietly laugh to yourself for a year after you've seen it. Odd lives in a small Oslo apartment where he raises birds. His life consists of going to his local restaurant and tobacco shop and visiting mom. She used to be a ski jumper, but now lives in a nursing home. She no longer speaks. O'Horten traverses through a series of scenes which have no particularly clear chronology. The movie begins with Odd's methodical preparation for his train route from Oslo to Bergen which he's driven for 40 years. Later that night at his retirement party, he feels awkward from the attention he gets from his co-workers. After the party, Odd gets locked out of a friend's apartment. He climbs up the scaffold which surrounds the building, but gets off at the wrong floor and ends up in the wrong apartment bedroom face to face with a young boy. On seeing the boy, Odd plans to retreat, but the boy asks him to stay and watch over him as he sleeps. Odd falls asleep sitting on the floor against the bedpost. When he wakes up, for the first time in his life he's late for work, and the train has left without him. This 'Oddity ' sets a series of small absurdities into motion. This type of gentle absurdist humor permeates O? . Odd goes to a swimming pool, but forgets his shoes. Instead he walks out wearing a pair of high-heeled red boots. In a wonderful sequence, Odd and some of his fellow trainmen entertain themselves by listening to recorded train whistles. They then try to identify the train's year and make by the whistles. In one funny scene, Odd tries to sell his boat and ends up in the enormous maze of the Oslo airport, looking for the buyer. A near-panic ensues when he accidentally ends up on the tarmac, close to flammable jet engine fuel with a lit pipe in his mouth. These many incidents are small and insignificant. They have no dramatic arc or much conflict and they really don't advance a plot, because there isn't much plot, but plot is not the point. The point is the revelation of a central truth to Odd about his life. When his mother was a ski jumper, he was always afraid. As he sees how fear kept him from acting on his dreams, the realization acts as a liberating force. Odd picks up a stranger who's fallen asleep on the snowy sidewalk pavement. The grateful stranger turns out to be a retired diplomat who invites Odd to his house for drinks. The diplomat believes he can drive blindfolded. In pre-dawn Oslo , he successfully drives a Citroen while blindfolded with Odd as his passenger. The film's minimalism makes it seem like there's little to hang onto in terms of plot or character. The scenes are like playschool set pieces, with characters stripped of drama or emotion. The film unveils like a storybook. But ultimately, O'Horten reveals its riches through its gentle, ironic shadows. The small absurdities and incongruities of Odd's humdrum life form an exterior surface which hides a rich inner life. In this life, every man, no matter how ordinary, has the capacity to dream to the fullest. Milos Stehlik's commentaries reflect his own views and not necessarily those of Facets Multimedia, Worldview or Chicago Public Radio. "
Media type
Sound
Credits
: WBEZ
Editor: Sam Stalling
Producing Organization: WBEZ
AAPB Contributor Holdings
Chicago Public Radio (WBEZ-FM) and Vocalo.org
Identifier: (unknown)
Format: audio/mpeg
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Citations
Chicago: “O'Horten,” WBEZ, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, accessed April 29, 2025, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-50-4298smb4.
MLA: “O'Horten.” WBEZ, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Web. April 29, 2025. <http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-50-4298smb4>.
APA: O'Horten. Boston, MA: WBEZ, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-50-4298smb4