Pre-Ramble: We’ve all got ‘em … the movies we’ve seen that rank at the top of some arbitrary scale … the “best movie we’ve ever seen” … or the “worst movie we’ve ever seen” … the stupidest movie … the weirdest movie … Well now, I have a new contender for the “slowest movie I’ve ever seen.” Slow, as in, a plot line and character development that take F-O-R-E-V-E-R to get going … and really, actually never do get going. Which turns out not even to be the point.

O’Horten was billed as a four-star, quirky, Norwegian film (it had subtitles that I honestly forgot were even there, which is kind of unsettling) that chronicled a slice of life of a retired railroad engineer. The two words that should stand out for you here are “quirky” and “Norwegian” — a potentially deadly combination that makes drying paint look like Cirque de Soleil.  Stoic understatement doesn’t even begin to describe it. Never mind that what represents “action” in the film takes place in the cold, ice-blue illumination of a Norwegian winter.

Movie critics loved O’Horten (hence the four-star rating):

• Metacritic.com – “O’Horten is about frustration, patience, kindness and the wildness that lurks in even the calmest hearts.”
• Christian Science Monitor – “A train engineer’s take on retirement slips into the absurd on this surreal Norwegian comedy from director Bent Hamer.”
• Cannes Review on Cinematical.com – “… O’Horten doesn’t have much of a plot, but then again, if you asked most people for the three-act structure of the day they’re having or the life they’re living, I doubt they’d have much of an answer …”
• Roger Ebert – “O’Horten, a bittersweet whimsy by the Norwegian director Bent Hamer, … involves us in the lives of its characters, so we can understand why they are funny while at the same time so distant.”

… frustration … patience … absurd … surreal … bittersweet … whimsy … ?  In all fairness, these descriptors were surrounded by praise for the subtle depth and charm portrayed in the film — which is totally deserved. I’m not talking about good or bad here.  There are many, many endearing and meaningful bits to O’Horten. … It’s just that the movie is … did I mention that the movie was slow? 

And that, is what I will treasure and remember it for. From now on, every movie that I see will be measured and ranked for pace by my internal movie meter according to the benchmark set by O’Horten.  It will be the gold standard of movie slowness until such time as another more superbly unhurried movie displaces it. Until then, the question asked will be, “Yeah, but was it as slow as O’Horton?”

The Take-Away:  Just shining a little light on relativity here. Whether we realize it or not, the events, experiences and opportunities that cross our paths (even the seemingly inconsequential ones, like movies) are part of a bigger picture, a life context that includes relationships to other events, experiences and opportunities, which come together to form our own personal hierarchy of experiences … stuff we can compare other stuff to.

Was O’Horten my favorite movie? No!  O’Horten probably isn’t even in my top 50 favorite movies. Yet, it will reign in my mind as the king of its realm, in all of its stiffly profound and memorable slowness.  And, beyond that, in this age of Top Ten everything, you need to be on the look-out; you just never know when something is going to scream to the top of one of your lists.  I’m just sayin.

Post-Note: Doesn’t O’Horton’s dog (shown above) look like it could be Daisy’s older, spottier, flabbier cousin?

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