Movie Review – Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale

Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale (2010)
Written and directed by Jalmari Helander

The mixing up of Santa lore is a prevalent trope in modern Christmas fare. While it’s becoming more common to see dark, action-oriented Christmas movies over the last few years, Rare Exports was one of the first. I saw this when it was initially released in 2010, and this was my first rewatch since my initial viewing. I found it to be entertaining & charming on my original viewing, but now, thirteen years later, it has not held up very well. There’s a fantastic kernel of a premise at the center of the film, but it never entirely comes together and commits the greatest sin an action movie can: it becomes interminably dull.

The film begins with a research team making a startling discovery while drilling into a mountain in the Lapland region of Finland. The team’s financier, Riley, believes this is a Sami burial mound and seeks to plunder it for treasures, but he is very wrong. Meanwhile, two local boys, Juuso and Pietari, spy on the drilling. They discuss the upcoming Christmas holiday and what Santa does to bad kids. Pietari’s father, Rauno, learns about a mass slaughter of wild reindeer and believes there is a dangerous wild animal loose. Rauno sets up a wolf trap, and the following day, they find a naked old man impaled to death, or so they think. Hours later, the man comes back to life. Eventually, they connect the appearance of this man with the strange goings-on atop the mountain. A group journeys to the peak and discovers the truth behind the legend of Santa, who is asleep and ready to wake up and wreak havoc.

Some fantastic ideas are at play here, especially the locals’ perceptions, as they can only see the larger picture at the end of the film. So much gets hinted at a certain point; you need the movie to pay it all off. If this had been a Hollywood-financed picture, then it would have been able to show off more bells & whistles, but because the budget was not that large, we’re limited with what we see. I feel writer-director Helander yearning to make that no-expenses-spared action extravaganza, but he never makes it there. The big bad trapped in the ice was something everyone in the audience wanted to see, but the money was just not there to make it happen.

The setup is good, and the ending is satisfying enough, but that middle chunk is a real slog to get through most of the time. It kept winking at the audience about the lore surrounding the mysterious old man and what was in the mountain but then kept holding back even a few significant crumbs from being given. I will credit the film with taking its premise seriously. There is never a divergence into crude jokes to try and break the tension. Even as the truth is revealed, as absurd as it is, the characters never feel like they are ironically detached. This is a battle for the survival of their community against a cosmic horror. 

One of the big problems with the pacing is that certain mysteries whose truth is hinted at become blatantly apparent to anyone paying attention. That causes the teasing to frustrate more than entice. We can already surmise where this is going, and the film goes there, so all this build-up didn’t really serve a purpose. You can’t say this is a children’s film because the violence is too harsh, so they don’t excuse the overly simplistic storytelling style. The picture could have worked better if it had been less graphic and angled more as a family action movie. Then, our expectations would have been tempered.

I loved the evocative opening titles, focusing on the folk appearance of Santa in European mythology. He’s shown as a more menacing figure, someone children would live in awe & fear. That makes sense with how entangled Claus is with the Krampus character in Europe. The setting of rural Finland adds to the atmosphere of menace, a wild environment where the humans don’t feel entirely in control. It just wasn’t enough to make the whole experience a fun one. I recommend 2015’s Krampus over this one if you want a Christmas film that crosses into horror territory. That film finds a tone & pace that keep things entertaining, reminding me of Joe Dante’s movies of the 1980s. Rare Exports remains a collection of interesting pieces, but they are never assembled into anything more extraordinary.