Junk Mail (1997)

From my favorite movies..

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

"Junk Mail", a comedy out of Oslo, tells of the activities of a grungy slug of postman whose curiosity and lack of good sense gets him in to a variety of undesirable situations. The camera follows the slovenly little protag as he goes about his business among a meager cast with almost no script delivering mail and almost nothing which can be regarded as entertainment. "Junk Mail" is the kind of unusual film which critics love and the public can't figure out why. Factor in subtitles and this flick just isn't worth the time...unless you're a critic, of course. (C-)

This film depicts Oslo as a rather run-down city which, as far as I can remember, it is not; and as for the Norwegian Postal Service ...well that seems to be struggling along if we can judge by the unreliable antics of Roy (Robert Skjaerstad), one of the young postmen. He not only opens and reads private mail, but also lets himself into an apartment when he finds a key left in a mail-box. His exploration of the rooms leaves little time for delivering letters so he dumps the contents of his bag in a railway tunnel. The irony of the situation is that he is awarded a gold watch for bravery in attendance to his duties after being badly beaten up in the streets. The originality of the story is completely charming as it blends romance, suspense and comedy in which Roy seems to get involved at every turn. One scene I particularly like is the one in which a locomotive almost runs him down in the tunnel and scatters his letters high and wide like a flurry of snowflakes. It's just one of many quaint scenes. In another scene he is on the point of being gunned down in his own grungey apartment when nearby jackhammers reverberate throughout the whole building giving him the opportunity to make his get-away. There is a suspenseful moment when he slips an iron bar through the doorhandles of a public toilet imprisoning a frantic gunman. Unfortunately for Roy (always a loser it seems) his inscribed wrist watch falls off in his struggle and so the gunman is eventually able to trace his whereabouts. The film is short and sweet, well worth watching. It has a lot of originality in the script and the acting is first class. The film suggests we should look under our beds before retiring . One never knows who may be hiding there...particularly in Oslo.

A twisty-turny narrative that ultimately leads nowhere, avoiding both exposition and explanation at the end of the day. Like a Nordic Coen Brothers film, this is more concerned with portraying quirky characters and odd scenarios, but despite some nifty camerawork, it is a rather ugly film, revelling in its depressingly squalid milieu without making any real point at the end of the day. The anti-hero remains a complete enigma throughout, but funnily enough, despite my reservations at the beginning, it was rather hard not to be won over at the end of the day. There were some marvellously taut action and suspense sequences, and some hilariously humourous scenes. Rather similar to most Scandinavian films I've seen actually. Dark grey and depressing, but blackly comic.

Junk Mail is a Norweigan movie, and it is as black a comedy as I've seen. But the makers of the movie have stumbled onto a comedic truth that never fails: take an aberrant character trait, and take it to the absolute limit. The lead character is a mailman of monstrously incompetent proportions, a creepy, irredemiably snoopy individual who can't even get mugged right; he would gladly have handed over his mailbag, but he couldn't get it off his shoulder. In the process of sneaking around a deaf girl's apartment whom he fancies, he saves her life after she tries to commit suicide. For this guy, this uncharacteristically unselfish act sets off a disastrous chain of events. This weird movie will NOT work for you if you don't think it's funny. And this movie will only be funny for you to the degree that you're cynical and capricious in your affections. People of good heart, stay away.