For anyone who thought Il Postino was a sappy bit of soft-focus Hallmark fluff, Norway's Junk Mail should serve as a fine antidote. Robert Skjaerstad plays a loser mailman who steals mail and dumps what he doesn't feel like delivering in a pit by the railroad tracks. The rest of the time, he sits in his squalid flat eating dinner from a can and amassing a large surplus of soiled pots and pans while his neighbor renovates with a jackhammer. When a hearing-impaired woman (Andrine Saether) on his route accidentally leaves behind her apartment keys, Skjaerstad decides to go exploring. He quickly becomes obsessed with this stranger, who adds some meaning to his otherwise drab existence. As any Hitchcock fan can tell you, voyeurism always leads to trouble, and soon Skjaerstad finds himself involved in the aftermath of a robbery and possibly a murder. First-time feature director Pal Sletaune makes Oslo look bleaker than Communist Poland: The streets are dark, the alleys foreboding, the bars shady, and the people unkempt. But Junk Mail is actually a dark comedy, the familiar murder theme an excuse for Skjaerstad to get into trouble and encounter oddballs like the slatternly crone he picks up at a bar. While the film is phenomenally slow-moving for a thriller, and a little too bleak and depressing to fully exploit its comic elements, the sad, lonely conclusion is somehow deeply satisfying.