Review of Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale (2010) by Patrick E — 05 Jan 2011

Truly original films are extremely rare these days, especially when it comes to Christmas themed films as most of them are almost indistinguishable. Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale is one of those rare films, a completely new take on the Santa myth and an excellent film to boot.

Set in the Korvatunturi Mountain's of Finland, a team of scientists have discovered something buried deep within one of the mountains. A young Finnish boy called Pietari is convinced that is Santa Claus, and not the loveable one of western culture but the evil Santa who dishes out severe punishment to naughty boys. A series of events leads to Pietari, his father and a few friends coming face to face with the man from the mountain that seems to be every bit as bad as Pietari thought. It's up to the young boy to become a man and help save his father and friends.

Beautifully shot and well acted, Rare Exports is almost a perfect film in that it's funny, and touching, action packed and truly an original take on the origins of Santa Claus. It's very well written with a touching relationship between father and son at its core. The coming of age of the boy is great to watch and you can't help but cheer him on. It is very funny at times but perhaps the tonal shifts between dark and brooding to light and slapstick comedy will be too much for some people. The effects are good and the Santa from the mountain looks truly menacing. The final 20 minutes have some great action scenes that are interspersed with moments of comedy to produce great entertainment. The only real flaw with the film is that it promises a pay off that never materialises. Whether this was due to budgetary constraints or otherwise it still leaves a slightly sour taste in the mouth and drags the film down a couple of notches.

Rare Exports is a truly original film and the best Christmas film of the last 5 years. Dark and tense at times but funny at others with a very well written coming of age story, you'll feel the same way about Santa again.