Rare Exports: A Chrismas Tale – Review

Every year there seems to be an abundance of Christmas or holiday themed movies, but for some reason this year Hollywood has decided not to put any out (outside of The Nutcracker 3D). Thankfully, Finland has decided to bring us one of the best Christmas movies in years. Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale was directed by Finish commercial director, Jalmari Helander. It tells the story of a man named Reily (Per Christian Ellefsen) who has begun an expedition in the Korvatunturi Mountains. The Korvatunturi Mountains are known in the Nordic countries as the place where Santa comes from.As the digging takes place, two boys, Pietari (Onni Tommila) and Jusso (Ilmari Järvenpää) witness watch. Pietari wants to believe that Reily and his are digging for Santa. Jusso tries to convince Pietari that Santa doesn’t exist, but Pietari wants to believe. He goes home and decides to research into Santa to try to find proof that he does exist. Unlike what is taught in America, Pietari finds out that Santa might not be the jolly, fat man everyone believes him to be. Santa is portrayed as an evil character who kills children when they are bad. This scares Pietari and when he looks out his bedroom window on the second floor he sees footprints in the snow on the roof.

While all this is going on, the small town where Pietari lives is getting ready for their harvest. Pietari and his father, Rauno (Jorma Tommila), meet up with the villagers to round up nearby reindeer to kill them and sell their meat. This is how everyone makes money. After a while only 2 reindeer show up. Pietari, Jusso, their fathers and a friend go out looking for what happened. They come across the reindeer that are slaughtered, which is right next to Korvatunturi Mountain. The next day Pietari wakes up to see his father’s wolf trap has been tripped. Rauno goes into the hole and pulls something out that he won’t show Pietari. It turns out this something is an old man with a long white beard. This Santa Claus, as we find out, is still wanted by Reily, who sets up a meet up with the three men and the Pietari. While this meet up is about to happen, the village children start missing.

By the end of the movie, there is a very big twist that makes the movie even better and takes it to a whole new level. The American trailer made the movie out to be a horror film with a few laughs, when in fact it was more of a comedy with horror elements. It was very similar to a film like Gremlins. The laughs are plenty and there is even a tiny bit of gore if that’s what you are looking for. Helander does a great job of taking a story that everyone knows and adding ideas from around the world to it. This is not the first time that Helander has visited the land of Rare Exports. In 2003 he filmed a 7 minute short with the same actors trying to capture Santa. A couple of years later he released another short, this one being about 10 minutes in length. Both shorts can be found on YouTube, but it best to see the movie first as it’s almost a prequel to these shorts. It’s also suggested that you run out now and see the movie. Every year there are marathons of movies like A Christmas Story, Elf andNational Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. It’s highly recommended that Rare Exports is added to that list. At a run time of 75 minutes, the movie flies by and leaves you wanting more. The acting is top notch, the writing is great and the directing is wonderful. The landscape plays a huge role in the movie, and it’s such a wonder to look at. If you miss one movie this holiday season, make sure this isn’t the one.

Rating:

Brad Reiter

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