RARE EXPORTS: A CHRISTMAS TALE is a Christmas movie about a very bad Santa. It is not for children. This is a review of it.
Release date: 3 December
Directed and written by: Jalmari Helander
Starring: Onni Tommila, Per Christian Ellefsen, Peeter Jakobi, Tommi Korpela, Jorma Tommila, Jonathan Hutchings
Cert: 16
Running Time: 82 mins
A few years ago the 16-certification was introduced in Ireland after a bunch of disgruntled parents kicked up a kerfuffle about the film BAD SANTA. These parents brought children to PG15 movie, expecting God knows what, but were offended by boozing, womanising and a generally dismissive attitude to political correctness. The children had the magic of Christmas tainted forever and Joe Duffy got an earful.
If BAD SANTA hadn’t brought about the inception of the 16s cert, then RARE EXPORTS: A CHRISTMAS TALE would have. This film is technically a Christmas movie but, for the love of all things snowy, please don’t bring your children, unless you want them to be sat at the foot of their bed with a shot gun on Christmas Eve.
For all intents and purposes this plays out like a children’s movie. The main protagonist is a little boy who lives in Lapland. His only friends are his teddy bear and slightly older boy who has outgrown all the Santa stuff. Some American capitalist types come in to search for Santa’s tomb, the local village industries get affected and it’s all a little spooky, without being scary.
There are some sinister tones running through the picture, but that could just be the Finnish way of telling a story (The movie is in Finnish by the way). The little boy is Pietari. Pete’s Dad is a butcher and there’s a bit more blood than one would expect from a children’s movie, his mother is dead and according to Finnish legend Santa wasn’t nice at all, he was in fact a demon of some sort. This Santa thing becomes the central theme of the movie and a never quite see the baddy game of cat and mouse develops.
This Santa thread gets progressively ominous and by the end things have turned utterly dark and there’s no chance of anyone who hasn’t entered their 20s being a little traumatised at the sight of mince pies once they’ve left the cinema.
As a story, it’s a good tale, told well. There are a few contrived plot points that are wedged in to add drama but fail to do so, but they aren’t so bad that it leads to frustration.
The CGI isn’t quite up to Hollywood standards, but it’s a lot better than I would have expected from Finland.
The problem for RARE EXPORTS is that it will struggle to find an audience. Hipsters or stoners could potentially stumble across it and give it a cult status, but grown ups will find the early parts too childish and children will never sleep again if they see it. It’s hard to know who this is for, but it definitely isn’t for kids.
