Directed By: Jalmari Helander
Starring: Jorma Tommila, Peeter Jakobi, Onni Tommila
Tag line: "This Christmas everyone will believe in Santa Claus"
Trivia: This movie is based on a short film, made by its director in 2003
You Better watch out…
You better not cry…
You better not pout…
I’m telling you why…
Santa Claus is coming to town
Watch Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale, a Fantasy / adventure directed by Jalmari Helander, and the above lyrics to the classic holiday tune "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" will sound more sinister than they ever have before.
The trouble begins when a team of American excavators, led by a millionaire named Riley (Per Christian Ellefsen), drills into a snow-covered mountain situated on the Russian border (which, according to Ryan, is actually the world’s largest burial mound, housing what he believes is the gravesite of the one and only Santa Claus). As their work continues, the locals in the town below, many of whom make their living off of the area’s reindeer population, find themselves facing a long, hard winter when the entire herd is systematically wiped out. Most people, including Rauno (Jorma Tommila) and Aimo (Tommi Korpela), think the American crew is to blame for this misfortune, but Rauno’s son Pietari (Onni Tommila) knows that the real culprit is Santa Claus himself, who, in truth, is nothing like the sweet, good-natured old man you see in the movies (in fact, he’s downright evil, kidnapping bad little boys and girls on Christmas Eve and dragging them to his lair). As his father and the others try to get the Americans to compensate them for the damages, Pietari is busy reading up on Santa Claus, hoping to find something that might help him defeat this unusual foe.
Released in 2010, Rare Exports puts a whole new spin on the Santa / Christmas mythos, weaving a tale that’s positively riveting. We realize early on, when Rauno and his neighbors stumble upon the bloody remains of hundreds of reindeer, that all is not as it seems (the adults are convinced the slaughter was caused by wolves driven from their mountain home by the American-led excavation, but Pietari finds a very human footprint amidst all the carnage, which, to him, confirms the killer was none other than Jolly St. Nick). As you’d expect, nobody listens to poor Pietari, and not even the discovery of a naked elderly man with a long white beard, who survived a fall into a deadly wolf trap, can convince them Santa is 1. Real, or 2. A ravenous killer. In a nice twist, young Pietari is not only the smartest character in this film (he’s the only one who figures out what’s really happening), he’s also the bravest, as he proves in the movie’s tense, electrifying finale, a showdown so crazy you’ll have to see it to believe it.
Shot, as the ads say, in the land of the original Santa (namely Norway), Rare Exports might not paint the big guy in the best of light, but as a fantasy / adventure, it’s a definite winner. Darkly funny and occasionally frightening, Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale is good enough to become a regular fixture on your yearly Holiday viewing schedule.
