Review of Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale (2010) by Oxana — 23 Aug 2014

This is easily my favorite Finnish film. As a rule, I don't like films from my home country, so it is a slight accomplishment to please me on that department.

"Rare Exports" has all the makings of a traditional Finnish film; bad language, raw lifestyle, some naked man parts...

And then, this is nothing like any movie I've seen - in a rather good way.

Imagine if Santa wasn't a jolly round man saying "ho-ho-ho" to the passer-by. Imagine something quite different. Something he perhaps used to be in folklore before he became the man at the side of the Coke bottle.

This film was creepy, a bit bloody/gory, but it didn't swing to the side of action all that much - other than near the end. They had a nice vibe going on the whole time, though, and it didn't get boring. In the beginning they introduced us to the people, which was good to make them work later in the film. After that it was a (less) jolly ride towards something quite strange.

The humor was... I think it was pretty Finnish. It had a lot to do with swearing. Actually, it had everything to do with a well-timed swear-word or two. But it worked. And this wasn't a comedy, although it had the whole theatre roaring with laughter every now and then.

I was a bit disappointed with our small hero Pietari. A small kid, quite innocent in the beginning, somehow transformed himself into a stone-faced action hero. How he just kept pulling one fact and plan after another from underneath his hockey helmet got a little weird: why choose a kid to do a man's job in a movie that clearly isn't directed to the small audience? Go figure.

Worth a watch, definitely. It will be interesting to see how foreign people take this one, and how they manage to execute the story (dubbed or subbed in those parts that weren't English). I think it will lose a lot for those who don't get us Finns, but oh well.