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The hero of Bent Factotum Hamer’s yarn is called Odd, which proves to be pretty apt.
He’s spent his life driving trains between Oslo and Bergen; now he’s 67, due to retire, and what’s he to do with the rest of his life? Get himself involved with a variety of quietly eccentric characters, that’s what.
This is downbeat, deadpan humour, very Scandinavian – Kaurismäkilite, if you like – though Odd himself, as played by the gangling Bård Owe, has something of Jacques Tati’s Monsieur Hulot about him, not least when he haplessly tries to locate a friend at Oslo airport. A film of dour but appealing charm.
Philip Kemp
