JUNK MAIL

"The characters in Junk mail are a miserable lot, but in that ordinary way that many European urban dwellers have become, yet with a uniqueness that endears us to them. They defend their lives, their personalities (however imperfect) at all costs. To them, after all, their lives are special. Sletaune’s strength is in building these characters for us, economically yet with a complexity that grows with each new layer, each new insight. He says in his notes to the film that "the film’s logic is the logic of coincidence and characters don’t plan their lives more than a couple of minutes ahead". This, to me, is the key to the film’s enjoyable unpredictably. The characterisations and, ironically, the story structure, give the film a depth, a haunting echo in the subsconscious. And the love story emerges from the grey mist of inadvertent meetings and a critical subplot about a robbery. In short, Junk Mail is wryly amusing, satisfying and rewarding in a way you don’t expect from what is essentially a black comedy. But then good black comedies mirror life with considerable authenticity."
Andrew L. Urban

"We all have an idealised view of the postman, often immortalised on film through the ages as trustworthy, reliable, honest and courteous. OK, forget all that, and welcome to the savagely dark and unpredictable world of Junk Mail, a quite brilliant and remarkable first feature by Norway's Pal Sletaune. This is not a film about an especially likeable character. Roy, the local postie, is a bit of a schmuck, you might say, the proverbial loser who lives in hideous surroundings, throws out half the mail he purports to deliver and reads the other half. Of course, for a film to be successful, you need a character that with whom we can empathise, so the skill of this script by director Sletaune and his collaborator Jonny Halbert, is to create sympathy for such a character. Theirs is a film about loneliness, yet it is curiously optimistic, through the unexpected relationship between Roy and the deaf Line, a relationship which inadvertently turns Roy into something of a human being. Dark, funny and fascinating, Junk Mail is an intelligent and provocative work, brazenly original and disturbingly compelling. Featuring a superb performance by Robert Skjaerstad as the hapless Roy, sharp camerawork that heightens the film's realistic milieu., Junk Mail is one of the freshest and most unique films of the year with a character you'll never forget in a hurry."
Paul Fischer