O'Horten can barely be heard

Perhaps it is a testament to the power of archetypes rather than a lack of originality on writer and director Bent Hamer's (Factotum) behalf that O'Horten feels so familiarly, comfortably indie.

American audiences have likely lost count of the nights spent trudging down to their local art house cinema to see a wounded but oddly lovable protagonist achieve catharsis through the help of other wounded but far odder characters.

Whether it is Jerseyite Zach Braff (think Garden State) or, in O'Horten's case, Norwegian Baard Owe (Comeback), actors are also often unable to resist the allure of living in close-ups and fully developing their character from point A to point B. Of course, what really matters is the execution of the emotional journey - and O'Horten is very finely executed.

Hamer, filming his story about retiring train operator Odd Horten (Owe), does include panoramic views of the vast Norwegian snows, but mainly favors granular sequences emphasizing an odd detail or two.

The most memorable scenes achieve the universal through the specific. Horten celebrates his retirement by quietly disrobing and gliding through a presumably empty pool only to have his sanctuary invaded by a duo of very randy lesbians.

One becomes aware of the European eye behind the camera due to the nonchalantly handled full frontals of all three swimmers. Yet Horten's decision to covertly escape and commandeer a pair of candy-red heels in place of his lost boots simply seems impossibly authentic and oddly relatable.

The film takes great pains to remind the viewer that Horten's first name also serves as an adjective. Something is not quite right about the old man with the crisp engineer's uniform and his beloved pipe always below his well-groomed, graying mustache.

He spends hours wandering around airport security in search of a friend named Flo (Bjorn Floberg, Restless) to ostensibly sell him his boat. Then, Horten again sneaks away before the final paperwork for the transaction can be signed.

Hamer's camera serves as both an observer and a conspirator. There are both flat, satirical frames of the old man being subjected to cavity searches. Subsequently, the audience is somehow convinced by Owe's searching glances and scheming air that the self-defeating escape just has to happen.

The audience is either being allowed to witness the heavily guarded secret of Horten's existence or made party to an absurdist Norwegian inside joke. It is never quite clear which it is (it's likely both, though perhaps neither).

Despite the inevitable linearity of the narrative, O'Horten plays out in disjointed episodes, each possessing its own peculiar, insular quality.

An accidental intrusion into the room of a little boy who blackmails Horten into reading him a bedtime story is a touching encounter and remains solely as such. The unlikely friendship does not blossom into an hour-long Disney movie about an old man who learns a thing or two from a spunky kid.

We see miscellaneous Norwegians - even a police officer on his overturned motorcycle - passively sliding down an icy street. They are unable to slow their descent, wearing expressions suggesting that sliding down roadways at midnight is simply a fact of life in Oslo, and there is no explanation or illuminating commentary.

Foreign audience members are once more left wondering if the joke is really about their ignorance of Norwegian weather or if Hamer is commenting through metaphor on the arc of Horton's existence.

This is not to imply there is no emotional groundwork to O'Horten. Owe's gentle enunciation speaks volumes about the trauma he has suffered. Every smile on his worn face is earned, and the odd moments do serve a gently symbolic purpose.

The only catch, then, is that O'Horten is perfectly calibrated - just not for modern America. It is so quiet it barely whispers - its pace so slow that the clicking of the projector seems to be moving faster than the limbs of its players. Subterranean tempos fine for sequestered Norwegian movie theaters in the dead of winter seem extremely inappropriate for the American summer.

O'Horten is the delicate truth of one stranger's life whispered into the ear. Whether one can stay alert and attentive enough to hear it is another matter entirely.

vmain13@umd.edu

RATING: 4 out of 5 stars