If you like your humour dark and dry, but also enjoy a good Christmas yarn, then the new film ‘Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale’ might just fit the bill.
I was invited by some friends to watch this film at the cinema the Christmas holidays and didn’t know much about it beforehand, other than it was filmed in Finland and was about Santa Claus. Christmas themed films do have a tendency to be cheesy and overly sentimental, so I didn’t have the highest of hopes for this one. But having visited Finland a few years back, and been spellbound by the beauty of its sparkling, snow covered landscape, I thought it worth taking a punt on.
Happily this isn’t like most Christmas films. Its dark, edgy humour makes a refreshing change, with not an ounce of cheese in sight.
It starts high in the mountains of Finland on Christmas Eve, with the digging up of a mysterious artifact that has been encased in woodchips and ice for thousands of years. We soon learn that this artifact is believed to be Santa Claus. Then things start to take a decidely dark turn, as the children in a nearby village start to disappear. The film’s hero is a young boy who sets out to discover the cause of the disappearances. When his father captures something living in a wolf pit in his backyard, the boy is determined to uncover the truth.
This is a fantastical yet sinister tale that sits somewhere between a traditional Christmas fairytale and a horror film. While it has some gory moments that undoubtedly make it unsuitable for younger children, I’m sure that if the Brothers Grimm were alive today they would thoroughly approve.
