Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale (2010)
Directed by Jalmari Helander
The holiday season always seems to sneak up on me and this year is no different. While I work on bigger and better things, please enjoy a review of a charming little Finnish flick with some big ambitions, Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale. Before all the recent high profile releases of Christmas horror films like Krampus, Anna And The Apocalypse, and A Christmas Horror Story, Rare Exports was a fascinating gem for mainstream audiences used to jolly Christmas films. Now that we have so many Christmas horror films, is Rare Exports still worth watching? Probably…but why not read below to find out?
Pietari’s Christmas Adventure!
Rare Exports tells an unusual Christmas story involving a rural Finnish community and their run-in with some, shall we say, “non-standard” Santa Claus lore. Pietari is a young boy with an odd obsession with Santa Claus. Not the typical, ‘I love Santa because of toys and presents and whatnot’ obsession, but a deep suspicion that this supposedly jolly figure can’t all be on the up and up. Living with his father, the two do their best to prepare for Christmas while, unbeknownst to them, a mining operation on a nearby mountain is threatening to unleash something ancient and festive.
Something For Christmas Lovers And Haters!
Rare Exports may just be one of the best movies to get you started on the holiday spirit. Not because it is the best Christmas/Horror mashup, but because it mixes so many ideas, themes, and moods that there is something in it for everyone, whether they’re into the holiday spirit or not. I’m sure many people not happy with how quickly Christmas rolls in each year and takes over every storefront, commercial, and radio station (oh god I’m old) will be pleased to see how Rare Exports skewers the Christmas favorites we all know. And lovers of Christmas will hopefully not be too bothered by the yuletide teasing and just enjoy the film for what it is.
Child And Adult Fears Collide!
And what it is happens to be pretty good! When you get passed all of the discussion of whether or not you think a movie with an Evil Santa is fun you’ll find that Rare Exports has a solid core from Pietari and his father having wildly different problems that happen to be linked. While Pietari is having his childhood obsession, his father deals with a much more immediate problem, that they are, for several reasons, very broke. It’s an interesting juxtaposition, Pietari’s childish obsession with his father’s real desperation to provide for his only family left after he and his business associates experience grave financial misfortune, and that juxtaposition goes a long way to making both stories interesting and both characters relatable. We’ve all been the child trying desperately to get someone to believe our stories, and many of us have transitioned to being adults with adult problems. Seeing both at the same time does help get some perspective on both sides.
Fun and Serious And Mostly Well Balanced.
While the relationship between father and son is the key plot in Rare Exports, there is a lot of other stuff going on that’s meaningful. I don’t want to give much away because slowly learning about all the bizarre Yuletide happenings is extremely fun, suffice it to say that even though the story deals with many heavy things such as looming poverty, loss, and childhood fears, there are just as many strangely joyous moments when some odd secret or connection is revealed. And the ending is pure weird fun.
Rare Exports Holds Up Mostly Well.
I’m a little bit at a loss for how to end this because, while I enjoyed many aspects of Rare Exports, something is holding me back from loving it. I can’t put my finger on it, can’t articulate it even slightly, there’s just something here that leaves me wanting more, and not in a good way. Maybe it’s because the ending seems to wrap everything up a little too neatly, but now I’m just grabbing at straws. Rare Exports is a good movie, and it is a great choice to start the Yuletide season. Just beware of all the full-frontal old man nudity. There’s a shocking amount of it.
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