Movie Review - Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale

Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale (2010)

Starring Onni Tomilla and Jorma Tommila

Directed by Jalmari Helander

Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale is certainly one of the most unique Christmas movies I've ever seen and while the tale is almost too simple and is absolutely resolved too quickly, I couldn't help but be won over a little bit by its originality.  I'm not quite sure there's another Christmas movie out there where Santa's naked elves run amok trying to capture naughty children in order to have them be reprimanded by Old St. Nick.  Don't mistake this for a horror movie -- admittedly, that's what I thought it was when I first heard about this flick a year ago.  No, it's really a weird dark comedy (one where you don't exactly laugh) based upon a interesting Santa Claus myth -- one in which Santa doesn't reward good children, but instead rather brutally punishes bad kids.

On the outskirts of Finland, an archeological expedition is underway.  Soon after young Piettari (Onni Tomilla) and his friend Juuso (Ilmari Järvenpää) stumble across the site, all of the reindeer which their fathers hunt in order to make a living end up dead...slaughtered, actually.  Piettari begins to feel guilt for entering the site and after doing a bit of research starts to believe that the dig is meant to unearth Santa Claus who was buried under a huge mountain hundreds of years prior in order to prevent him from doing harm to children.  Although his father (Jorma Tommila) finds Piettari's stories hard to believe, he soon finds that his young son may not be imagining things.

Despite the flick's short 80-minute run time, Rare Exports does have a tendency to drag a bit (I think, in part, subtitled flicks have a predisposition to do that sometimes), but for the most part it's an enjoyable little diversion that I am sure will be unlike any Christmas movie you'll have ever seen.  Although it's rated R (mainly for some blurry - and sometimes not-so-blurry - male nudity), it's certainly not filled with language or massive amounts of violence.  For its sheer absurdity, I can't help but recommend a watch.

The RyMickey Rating:  B-