“O’Horten” is a quiet film about a quiet man, filmed with quiet humor. In its entire length, there is not one single big explosion.
Ordinarily, that is to be desired. But this Norwegian export proves, for most of its length, that it is possible to be too quiet.
Bard Owe stars as a newly retired train engineer who discovers, at age 67, that it is never too late to start living. And that moment is uplifting and moving and sweet -- when it finally comes. It just takes too long to get there; or rather, too little happens before it does.
Owe stars as Odd Horten. Odd may be a perfectly normal Norwegian name, but its English meaning is not entirely inappropriate for him. He lives a life almost unnoticed, leaving his modest flat only to go out for a quiet (of course) beer, to visit his invalid mother and to drive a train from Bergen to Oslo, and then from Oslo back to Bergen.
His mother, we learn, was in her youth a ski jumper. But Odd would never do anything that dangerous, that out of the ordinary. He is a simple man with simple tastes; his chief (and possibly only) joy is his pipe.
As the film begins, Odd is about to retire. Shy and self-effacing, he is not looking forward to the inevitable retirement party (“Odd does not enjoy the limelight,” says the host), with its tributes and its humorously bizarre, train-related rituals.
Most of the rest of the movie shows Odd continuing not to enjoy life, but becoming increasingly aware that things are happening around him -- an unexpected arrest, a couple of young lovers finding what they think is privacy, a man trying to dodge a dinner party with his wife.
It is a chance encounter with a diplomat played by Espen Skjonberg that changes him, and it is certainly welcome when it comes. Too much of the rest of the film centers on such breathless questions as whether or not he will sell his boat. Not why he is thinking of selling it, just whether he will.
Owe is fine as Odd, a man in whom still waters run…still. He can’t be captivating, though, because there is so little of him. We have the sense that Odd isn’t a man who sits and thinks, he’s just a man who sits.
There’s nothing wrong with that, of course. It’s just a little quiet.
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