Odd Horten (Owe) is a 67-year-old train engineer on the cusp of retirement. After a low-key retirement party, O'Horten finds himself off the rails, so to speak, and winds up in numerous misadventures.
The synopsis is being kind to O'Horten, an art house film that embodies the reason why people don't like art house films. Nothing happens in its brief running time. Sure, Horten gets into little scrapes like breaking into a house in the middle of the night and has a chat with a child; buys a new pipe, takes a ride with a diplomat who likes to drive blind; visits his mother in an old folk's home; goes for a pint; sells his boat, etc. But there's never an end product to any of these occurrences. There's no reason why these events happen.
For the life of me, I couldn't fathom why this character would warrant a film made about him. He doesn't do anything of note. There's no purpose to him. Maybe this is director Hamer's comment on old age, regret of a life wasted, but it doesn't make for good drama. His previous effort, Factotum, is everything O'Horten isn't.
There are a few stand out moments, however: the opening sequence that sees Horten's train travel through tunnels in a wintry landscape is majestic, and the odd flashes of offbeat humour garner a sporadic laugh (the retirement party's 'guess the train sound' quiz; the blind drive through Oslo; the arrest of the cook) but these are few and far between. Bland and boring, there's nothing here that will stick in the memory.
