'it's about the mothers' - spoilers

I watched this last night on DVD, including the Special Features interview with the director and the music director. I couldn't believe how incredibly inarticulate they both were, how disjointed and awkward their remarks were, and the interviewer wasn't much better. Maybe it was a poor translation, but they did appear to be floundering.
But one thing the director said that intrigued me, and which unfortunately the interviewer ignored, was "it is really about the mothers." Then he mentions the ski jumping. The film is also dedicated to "female ski jumpers."
I guess he meant that Odd's mother was so bold and independent, to be a ski jumper against convention and against her father's wishes, but Odd himself was always afraid to do it. Instead of flying freely through space he had spent his life encased in a heavy engine, rolling down tracks which never varied. (As the British say about stolid, unimaginative people, "He has his tracks, and he runs on them." )
His transformation starts with the retirement which forces him off the tracks.
Then he could have traded the train for another enclosure, the boat, but he sheds it also.
He then gets jogged off his tracks when he can't find the party at Rohmer's, and misses his train.
He is clinging to a post because of the icy street, but he sees there are other alternatives. One person is able to just calmly walk up the icy hill with no problem, another blithely slides down it sitting down.
Then he meets the crazy guy who drives blind, and it is through him (his skis) that Odd is able to make his real leap to freedom.
Of course, in reality that leap in the dark would probably kill him, but it's like his mother's spirit leads him to freedom, to get out of his uniform, and back to the landlady who obviously has great affection for him, to live happily ever after.
In other words, we need to be willing to make the leap to freedom, and not limit ourselves.
Well, that's what I got out of it.