ODD LITTLE MAN

“A year in the world of our childhood lasts longer than a year anywhere else.” One of the many quotable observations (Oddservations?) of popular Norwegian humorist Odd Borretzen, whose comical memories of a golden youth spent in the late 1930s, in the countryside outside Oslo, weave the fabric of ODD LITTLE MAN. This pastoral comedy can stand assuredly next to “My Life as a Dog” (11th CIFF, 1987), “The Slingshot” (18th CIFF, 1994), “Village of Dreams” (21st CIFF, 1997), and even Cleveland's own “A Christmas Story,” for its hearty evocation of how things look to a small boy's quizzical gaze. Little Oddemann knows that a terrible war is brewing somewhere, that poverty and work can turn grownups (his parents excepted) into stern, serious people that he'd rather not become. So he seeks answers, via the directives handed down by his older brother (in proper hierarchy of omnipotence, the ranking goes Mom, Dad, God, Jesus), through the heroic deeds of Norway's polar explorers like Nansen and Amundsen, and by a miraculous apparitioin of Christ – which he hopes to bring about using a slingshot. Peewee Herman's big adventure involved looking for his stolen bicycle. Odd's quest is no less than the Meaning of Life. (In Norwegian with English subtitles)