Feature Interview by Philippa Bradnock
Bent Hamer keeps making films about old people. 'I think I have to stop saying that this is the last film I'm going to make with old people because it happens all the time.' He questions why people pick up on that, when they would not if his films focused on the young or middle aged. 'I think stories about old people also represent the stories of people at other stages of life, at least that's what I try to do. And you also find out parallels to your own life, things you thought were very private. I find that very interesting to work with as a story, but also [when thinking of] the actors' own lives and references.'
His latest film, O'Horten , follows Odd Horten, a Norwegian train driver, as he retires at 67. He meanders about Oslo ; visits his mother in a care home; considers selling his boat; drinks in his local bar; goes for a night time swim and makes friends with an eccentric diplomat who insists he can drive blindfolded. The blindfolded drive has its roots in real life: 'In the 60s these clairvoyants came to the cities. One of the things they did was drive blindfold from one part of the city to another. And you could read that it was happening and at what time in the newspapers the day before. Next to them would sit the head of the post office or some official person to verify that they couldn't see. This happened in my home town, and it went very well across the first two junctions, and then the car just slightly went into the curb and stopped and they didn't really know what to do. The audience was standing there along the street. And after a while they had to try to talk to the guy and see what was happening. And he was stone dead!'
There is a wealth of delicately observed situations in the film and it is hard to attribute its genesis to one particular inspiration. Hamer agrees: 'The whole thing is pieced together in bits. Most of my other films started on a very focused idea, sometimes with a certain situation I started in the centre and tried to work my way out. This time I've tried to work my way in to some kind of centre. It's a very strange process for me.' He starts with the details. 'I think that's the normal way that all film makers work, you work in 360 degrees all the time.'
Was the actor who plays Horten, Baard Owe, an inspiration for Horten? '[Baard] is really eccentric. He's a great character, and very funny, in a way Odd Horten is not, but it's inside he's him somewhere and I think you can feel that. That's probably why he's interesting to watch.' Owe conveys Horten skilfully, but this is the result of feeling his way, rather than of painstaking rehearsal. 'I don't like to do rehearsals. If the actors feel like they want to do a rehearsal then I do. But very often I don't do it. I like to take very few takes. And I don't like to talk too much. You want the messages to get through but there are many ways of doing that. So obviously I do it my way but it's not a recipe. There are several methods to achieve the same result.'
Hamer's films have a timelessness that makes it hard to pin them down to a particular era, despite being set in the present day. 'Very often I find myself trying to establish some kind of 'no time'. It could be ten years ago and it could be ten years ahead. It's a way of creating an atmosphere. How do you create an atmosphere in a film? You can have everything right, the colours, the clothes, the acting, the dialogue, everything. But the film is stone dead. You don't know the recipe for creating an atmosphere, and you don't know until the film is finished and you show it to the audience. But maybe it's a part of trying to achieve this atmosphere.'
A lot of the film is set at night, which also contributes to its atmosphere. Hamer worked closely with the cinematographer, John Christian Rosenlund to shoot these difficult scenes: 'I plan it very well, I like to think, in order to be open minded when we shoot it. We talked about the colours, blue, cold outside and then yellow, brownish inside. It turned out to be a lot of night scenes, which are so expensive – to shoot dark requires a lot of light, ironically. Maybe it supports the loneliness and solitude in the film. At different times of day I can avoid having a lot of people around [Horten]. I can see that when I watch my films: I like to take away people, instead of adding people. But even when there are a lot of people around, like [when Horten is at] the airport, you can be very lonely. And he is very lonely at the airport.'
Some audiences have been keen to clarify the film's ambiguous ending, when Horten attempts a night-time ski jump, as was an article in Sight and Sound magazine. 'It was a typical question in the US , they want straight answers. In Canada they asked me “did he survive?” and I said “I really don't know, it's up to you, but if he didn't jump he would certainly have died. I think that's my attitude, to keep it open.' Hamer is wary of explaining his films too much. Like Kitchen Stories , O'Horten has a death and a main character, who takes something from the dead friend: what does this mean? 'It's scary these days – I'm meeting journalists who've seen all my films and I feel like I really have nothing to say because they have all the answers! What can I say?'
Hamer shows a similar reticence to provide packaged wisdom within the industry. He is part of the group which selects directors to go to the national film school. The school was established in 1997, which Hamer sees as woefully late. 'We don't have the same history of film as Sweden and Denmark . We really depend on support from the government, there are less than 5 million people, so even with a huge success it's impossible to get the money back. There's been better support in the last few years, a very strong Minister for Culture.' He credits a change in the way public money is distributed for film-making with generating more interesting, more personal films. Despite his involvement, he is modest about his ability to contribute creatively: 'I do some master classes. Many years ago they asked me to run the department for directing [at the film school] but I had only made one film by then, so it was stupid. I should be going out and making mistakes and then come in and report!'
Are Hamer's eccentric characters and those of recent Norwegian cinema indicative of a national character? 'Yes, everybody is like Horten!' he laughs. 'No, maybe it fits well with some kind of Nordic myth. Don't ask me why. We are a very young film making nation. There are other types of films but they don't travel much. But I think we will see different films in future, it will take some more time probably.'
Hamer's young son plays the child whom Horten comes across early in the film. What was it like working with him? 'He doesn't take much direction from his father, so I left a lot of it to my wife and to Baard [Owe], which was a little dangerous for him because he didn't know the main actor too well.' '[For payment] he demanded to have schoko-balls for breakfast. I told him he had a very bad agent!'
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