‘The real Santa was totally different. The Coca-Cola Santa is just a hoax…’
Long-time readers will be all too painfully aware of the 12 Days of Christmas Films project that I kept up for five, tortuous years. 60 Christmas films in total. Each one more ludicrous and saccharine than the last. Bearing in mind the barrels I ended up scraping during that time (I’m looking at both versions of Jack Frost here), it is genuinely astonishing that I never happened upon Rare Exports. Not that Jalmari Helander’s film is a masterpiece, it isn’t. But it is interesting, and unique, and weird. And when you’ve just suffered through The Holiday, all of those things become attractive…
Pietari (Onni Tommila) is an inquisitive and courageous young boy who becomes embroiled in a sinister plot to dig Santa Claus out of his resting place in the Korvatuntari mountains. This isn’t the jolly old saint Nick that we all know and love, however. This guy is goddamn evil. And his ‘elves’ are all grotesque old men who are also inexplicably naked. Suffice to say, this isn’t a normal Christmas film.
The Christmas film market has never been more saturated than it is now. The rise of streaming services has facilitated more mainstream Christmas films than ever. The problem is that making a crowd pleasing Christmas film is too easy. Santa. Sentimentality. Snow. It’s all so formulaic and unimaginative. Something like Rare Exports then, despite its paper thin and sometimes confusing plot, is a welcome tonic during these heady days of a new Christmas film seemingly every day.
The effects are basic, but enjoyable. The acting is surprisingly strong, particularly Tommila who excels in the lead role, and the whole thing is shot through with a welcome leaning towards the vulgar and absurd. Did I mention the elves are naked, old men?
Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale (to give it its full title) is not one for the whole family to enjoy over pigs in blankets and chocolate Baileys, but if you want something a little different over the festive period, it will be sat glaring at you from the very darkest corners of the Amazon Prime vaults.