O'Horten

Oh! stands for both odd and Odd, the first name of Horten, a pipe-smoking Norwegian train engineer on the point of retirement after 42 years, riding the straight and narrow. Odd is an odd choice for a movie central character, given movies rarely feature retired characters, despite the fact, retired are among the most avid of movie goers. Moreover Odd's plot arc, trading in one identity (hermetic Scandanavian life-style) for another (bewildered golden ager, liberated with much too much time on his hands), is a future shock ego-crusher. Odd, fortunately, seems to have little ego.

So Odd Horten, in retirement, has no clue where to start living the rest of his life, since he has no friends, no hobbies, no colleagues. Director, Bent Hamer (Do all Norwegian names pun in English?) clearly has an affectionate absurdist take on Odd's life and times. Odd gets stuck in the oddest of situations: in the bedroom of a young boy; on an airport runway, smoking his pipe; in a pool with skinny dipping kids. And his new life discovers a cadence all its own, open to whatever whimsy wends his way. Surreal eccentrics pop up, disporting funky charms: his Alzheimer mom, once a ski-jumping champion; a psychic diplomat able to drive his Citroen blindfolded through icy streets of Oslo; an executive sliding down icy Oslo hill on his briefcase.

So O'Horten is a road movie of sorts - as Odd travels into his future. John Candy and Steve Martin (back when he was hilarious) collaborated on Planes, Trains and Automobiles 20 years ago. Bent Hamer goes further with all manner of idiosyncratic Norwegian conveyances, Odd travels on streetcars, buses, sailboats and finally ski jumps! And as a consequence, we get to look around glorious Norway - something no movie within memory has ever offered. (Unsurprisingly, Norway looks like Northern Alberta). And O'Horten feels like Jacques Tati, or those bittersweet deadpan Czech movies that Milos Forman, Jiri Menzel and Jan Kadar snuck out to the West in 1960s.

Oh! in this case, also stands for original, off-beat and Buster Keaton odd.