O'Horten (PG)

Wonderfully deadpan comedy somewhere between Aki Kaurismaki, Buster Keaton and Monty Python

Director: Bent Hamer
Starring: Baard Owe, Ghita Nørby, Espen Skjønberg

Thur 2 April 8.30pm - The Courtyard Hereford

With its droll humour and aching melancholy this wonderfully deadpan comedy is somewhere between Aki Kaurismaki, Buster Keaton and Monty Python. A taciturn, self-effacing train driver, Horten's life has been one of comfortable routines for many years, but his calm existence is unsettled the moment he retires. Can this old dog learn new tricks? Through a series of increasingly absurd misadventures Horten finds a desire to live life to the full before it's too late. Underneath the quirkiness and crisp visual imagery runs a vein of wistful sadness that infuses all Hamer's films (Kitchen Stories, Factotum), but his natural optimism and offbeat humanism shine through in the ending and in some laugh-out-loud sequences along the way.