NEW YORK -- Pal Sletaune's debut feature has reached impressive goals for a modest comedy-mystery about an eccentric postal worker. Winner of the 1997 International Critics Week competition at Cannes, it was Norway's official Academy Award selection this year and was seen at Sundance. Recently unspooled at New Directors/New Films, it recently opened for a commercial run.
This Hitchcockian spoof tells the story of Roy (Robert Skjaerstad), the postal worker from hell. When he's not steaming open other people's mail for his own amusement, he's dumping his excess load into an abandoned tunnel. Living in a rundown apartment to the constant sound of jack-hammering and eating his meals straight out of the can, he's not your typical suspense-film hero.
Roy is obsessed with a beautiful, hearing-impaired woman named Line (Andrine Saether), and when she accidentally leaves her keys in her mailbox, he can't resist taking them and letting himself into her apartment. At first, he simply snoops around, stealing a photograph and listening to her phone messages, which include a threatening call from someone named George. Soon, he sneaks in with regularity, and when he shows up one day and finds Line unconscious and naked in the tub in the midst of an apparent suicide attempt, he rescues her and calls for an ambulance. Ultimately, their lives become intertwined, and the film becomes a quasi-thriller as Roy and Line become embroiled in an increasingly dangerous series of events.
"Junk Mail" is modest in scope and intentions and works mainly because of the screenplay's deadpan humor and Sletaune's low-key directorial style. Set with a bleak backdrop of Norway that makes the high suicide rates in Scandinavian countries highly explicable, the film has atmosphere to spare. Though the story line is less than credible, the quirky characterizations and situations make it work.
Both leads are making their feature film debuts and score well. Skjaerstad makes Roy's creepiness all too real and wisely resists the urge to make his character endearing. And Saether gives Line the exact edge required to make her an able foil for Skjaerstad's neurotic postal worker.
JUNK MAIL
Lions Gate Films
Credits: Director: Pal Sletaune; Screenplay: Pal Sletaune, Jonny Halberg; Producers: Dag Nordahl, Peter Boe; Co-producers: Tom Remlov, Anders Berggren; Director of photography: Kjell Vassdal; Editor: Pal Gengenbach; Composer: Joachim Holbek. Cast: Roy: Robert Skjaerstad; Line: Andrine Saether; George: Per Egil Aske; Betsy: Elianne Linnestad; Sether: Trond Hovik. No MPAA rating. Running time -- 83 minutes. Color/stereo...
This Hitchcockian spoof tells the story of Roy (Robert Skjaerstad), the postal worker from hell. When he's not steaming open other people's mail for his own amusement, he's dumping his excess load into an abandoned tunnel. Living in a rundown apartment to the constant sound of jack-hammering and eating his meals straight out of the can, he's not your typical suspense-film hero.
Roy is obsessed with a beautiful, hearing-impaired woman named Line (Andrine Saether), and when she accidentally leaves her keys in her mailbox, he can't resist taking them and letting himself into her apartment. At first, he simply snoops around, stealing a photograph and listening to her phone messages, which include a threatening call from someone named George. Soon, he sneaks in with regularity, and when he shows up one day and finds Line unconscious and naked in the tub in the midst of an apparent suicide attempt, he rescues her and calls for an ambulance. Ultimately, their lives become intertwined, and the film becomes a quasi-thriller as Roy and Line become embroiled in an increasingly dangerous series of events.
"Junk Mail" is modest in scope and intentions and works mainly because of the screenplay's deadpan humor and Sletaune's low-key directorial style. Set with a bleak backdrop of Norway that makes the high suicide rates in Scandinavian countries highly explicable, the film has atmosphere to spare. Though the story line is less than credible, the quirky characterizations and situations make it work.
Both leads are making their feature film debuts and score well. Skjaerstad makes Roy's creepiness all too real and wisely resists the urge to make his character endearing. And Saether gives Line the exact edge required to make her an able foil for Skjaerstad's neurotic postal worker.
JUNK MAIL
Lions Gate Films
Credits: Director: Pal Sletaune; Screenplay: Pal Sletaune, Jonny Halberg; Producers: Dag Nordahl, Peter Boe; Co-producers: Tom Remlov, Anders Berggren; Director of photography: Kjell Vassdal; Editor: Pal Gengenbach; Composer: Joachim Holbek. Cast: Roy: Robert Skjaerstad; Line: Andrine Saether; George: Per Egil Aske; Betsy: Elianne Linnestad; Sether: Trond Hovik. No MPAA rating. Running time -- 83 minutes. Color/stereo...
- 4/14/1998
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
A tense police drama that relies on atmospherics and deliberate pacing rather than slam-bang action, "Insomnia", from Norway, is the kind of uncommonly intelligent thriller that Hollywood seems able to accomplish only for television. Recently unveiled to critical acclaim at Cannes, the film deserves domestic art house exposure, assuming that the marketplace can stand at least one foreign film that doesn't concern the romantic travails of French adolescents.
Erik Skjoldbjaerg's debut feature benefits greatly from the presence of lead actor Stellan Skarsgard ("Breaking the Waves", "Zero Kelvin"), who continues to impress with his tremendous range and versatility. He plays police investigator Jonas Engstrom, who, with his partner Erik Vik Sverre Anker Ousdal), has traveled to a town in northern Norway to help solve the murder of a young girl. While chasing a suspect, Jonas accidentally shoots and kills Erik and then places the blame on the suspect.
While continuing to pursue the case, he comes under increasing scrutiny from a female detective who suspects his role in the shooting. Meanwhile, he begins to be emotionally tortured by feelings of guilt, which manifest themselves in, among other ways, recurring images of his dead partner. Not helping matters is the insomnia he suffers, partially as a result of the region's constant summer sunshine.
Director Skjoldbjaerg displays a sure visual style and beautifully maintains an atmosphere of intensity and menace, as Jonas' dark nature and the mystery behind the killing are slowly revealed. He is aided greatly by the supremely controlled performance from Skarsgard, whose character is at once fascinating, impressive and repellent. This kind of complexity and ambiguity permeates the film, keeping the viewer guessing at every turn.
INSOMNIA
A Norsk Film
and Nordic Screen Production presentation
Director Erik Skjoldbjaerg
Screenplay Nikolaj Frobenius, Erik Skjoldbjaerg
Producers Petter J. Borgli, Tom Remlov,
Tomas Backstrom
Director of photography
Erling Thrumann-Andersen
Editor Hakon Overas
Music Geir Jenssen
Color/stereo
Cast:
Jonas Engstrom Stellan Skarsgard
Erik Vik Sverre Anker Ousdal
Jon Holt Bjorn Floberg
Hilde Hagen Gisken Armand
Ane Maria Bonnevie
Running time -- 97 minutes
No MPAA rating...
Erik Skjoldbjaerg's debut feature benefits greatly from the presence of lead actor Stellan Skarsgard ("Breaking the Waves", "Zero Kelvin"), who continues to impress with his tremendous range and versatility. He plays police investigator Jonas Engstrom, who, with his partner Erik Vik Sverre Anker Ousdal), has traveled to a town in northern Norway to help solve the murder of a young girl. While chasing a suspect, Jonas accidentally shoots and kills Erik and then places the blame on the suspect.
While continuing to pursue the case, he comes under increasing scrutiny from a female detective who suspects his role in the shooting. Meanwhile, he begins to be emotionally tortured by feelings of guilt, which manifest themselves in, among other ways, recurring images of his dead partner. Not helping matters is the insomnia he suffers, partially as a result of the region's constant summer sunshine.
Director Skjoldbjaerg displays a sure visual style and beautifully maintains an atmosphere of intensity and menace, as Jonas' dark nature and the mystery behind the killing are slowly revealed. He is aided greatly by the supremely controlled performance from Skarsgard, whose character is at once fascinating, impressive and repellent. This kind of complexity and ambiguity permeates the film, keeping the viewer guessing at every turn.
INSOMNIA
A Norsk Film
and Nordic Screen Production presentation
Director Erik Skjoldbjaerg
Screenplay Nikolaj Frobenius, Erik Skjoldbjaerg
Producers Petter J. Borgli, Tom Remlov,
Tomas Backstrom
Director of photography
Erling Thrumann-Andersen
Editor Hakon Overas
Music Geir Jenssen
Color/stereo
Cast:
Jonas Engstrom Stellan Skarsgard
Erik Vik Sverre Anker Ousdal
Jon Holt Bjorn Floberg
Hilde Hagen Gisken Armand
Ane Maria Bonnevie
Running time -- 97 minutes
No MPAA rating...
- 5/29/1997
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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