Budbringeren

Most people have both heroic and beastly traits - that's what makes them so interesting," says Norwegian director Pal Sletaune, whose first feature Budbringeren (Junk Mail), a black comedy about "Oslo's, probably the world's, worst postman" is screening today in the Critics' Week.

Before becoming a still photographer, Sletaune studied literature and art history at the University of Oslo. "It was by accident," he says. "I arrived to read philosophy and was met by five gentlemen discussing Kant in German. On the other side of the corridor 70 girls were watching colour slides - they called it art history. It was an easy choice."

Sletaune's 1991 film debut was a documentary on art, Merz - en film om Kurt Schwitters liv (Merz - Kurt Schwitters), which was followed by two short films, Bingoplassen (The Bingo Joint) and Eating Out. The latter bagged the first prize at the Norwegian Short Film Festival in Grimstad and went on to win five international awards.

Budbringeren stars Robert Skjaerstad (who was also the lead in Eating Out) as Roy, a love-starved postman in the Norwegian capital, who isn't bothered by professional ethics. He dumps mail, steals leters to read, and insults his few friends and colleagues. "He is one of the invisible, the unlucky and the insignificant. He is the guy you don't notice

till he crashes at the seat next to you in the bus on a Saturday night, drunk and quarrelsome. But even if he vomits in your lap while trying to steal your wallet, you will still begin to like him," says Sletaune, who wrote the script with Jonny Halberg.

"Budbringeren is a story of love and a loneliness - the loneliness that kills many people today," says Sletaune. "Roy lives on substitutes, he does not write his own love letters, but reads a lot of them addressed to others. I think many people exist on such substitutes, so in a way Roy is a lucky man: he has easy access to them."

The story involves a young woman, Line (Andrine Saether), who forgets her keys in the staircase mailbox. With no respect for privacy and property, Roy hesitates only for a moment, before he goes to her apartment and unlocks the door. However, his action brings unexpected dnger.