O’Horten (Bent Hamer, 2007): Norway | Germany | France

Reviewed by Emily Gray, AFI Film Festival, Hollywood

O’Horten feels like one of those movies that won’t make sense until the end when the director lets you in on the secret and you think, “Oh, okay!”  Yet, in O’Horten the end comes and you’re left wondering to yourself what it is you just watched. Not a complete waste of time O’Horten is filled with humorous scenes. But it’s just not enough to save this droll but boring film.

The film begins with 67 year old Odd Horten (Baard Owe) on his second to last day as a train engineer. That evening his fellow engineers throw him a dinner in his honor even though he’s not one for attention. They continue the party at one of their apartments but Horten accidentally gets locked out of the building. So he climbs the scaffolding on the outside of the building and climbs into a random apartment. As he tip toes towards the front door he is caught by a young boy who wants to show him a toy. Sweet Horten obliges and is roped into staying until the boy falls asleep. Horten wakes up in the morning in the same apartment, is able to sneak away without the family seeing him but misses his official last day of operating the trains. And thus begins the spiral into an arbitrary storyline.

Filled with random eccentricities of a retired engineer, O’Horten felt a little flat and pointless. It was a much lighter film than the others at the AFI Film Festival but the plot seemed to have no point. Each of the vignette-like scenes of Horten’s new life by themselves were great. They were witty and random but in a good way. However, when pieced together the movie was lost in that randomness, with no drive toward a specific goal. Each of the small subplots, particularly that of the sleepy little boy in the beginning, would have made excellent and hilarious shorts. Strung together, it was easy to loose interest since there is no clue given on where the movie is heading. Sure, Horten learned things about himself but the situations he finds himself in were too unrealistic and strange.

From the get go things are inconsistent. Shy O’Horten who doesn’t like attention, climbing up a scaffolding in the dead of winter and going into a strangers apartment? Maybe he would do this at the end of the movie when he has become a little more brazen, but this is out of character for him in the beginning. Paul Moore for Spoutblog.com writes, “O’Horten is a coming of age story. Horten is cast not as young people see him but as how he sees himself.”  Perhaps, but where exactly Horten is coming from in the first place is unclear. Was he unhappy about the way he was living his life? Or was he lonely? If there was more of a definite answer to Horten’s past maybe it would have been more coherent where his life was going in the film.

Somewhat cute, somewhat funny O’Horten may only be considered a good movie by certain demographics. It may speak more to an older population that can better relate to what he’s going through. Or it may be that this is the kind of movie that only Norweigan folks find amusing since it is based out of Norway. It may even really hit the spot for older Norweigan people but whatever the case may be if you feel like watching something European you could watch an Ikea commercial and get the same feelings as you would from O’Horten.