Keswick Film Festival

Synopsis

Odd Horten is a 67-year-old Norwegian train driver who discovers after hanging up his timetable for the last time that there is still light at the end of the tunnel . After attending a party at which his colleagues see him off by pretending to be steam engines, Horten settles into retirement by embarking on a mini-odyssey which brings him a host of new experiences and eccentric encounters, involving a deal of visual humour. Reminiscent of the work of Aki Kaurismäki and Roy Andersson, Bent Hamer’s film maintains a balance between dark reality and theatrical irony as the rising tide of melancholy is complemented by his fine sense of the ridiculous.