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‘Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale’ — Seeing Santa in a whole new light
While Americans’ notion of Santa Claus (aided by the good folks at Coca-Cola) is a right, jolly old elf, many other countries have tales of a much less kind spirited fat man with a bag of toys. As we learned Friday night at the Alamo, both Finland and Iceland have stories of a scary figure that favors negative reinforcement over positive.
In “Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale,” young Pietari lives in the barren northern parts of Finland with his single father, Rauno, a butcher. When Rauno and his friends discover their herd of reindeer slaughtered, they blame wolves they assume have been scattered by explosions set off by the furtive scientists of Subzero Inc. working atop a nearby mountain. But Pietari knows better. With his fear-fueled imagination keeping him up at nights, Pietari worries that he and his best friend are going to incur the wrath of the evil Santa Claus they believe is buried inside the mountain. Rauno dismisses his son’s concerns until a strange, bearded man - or is he sub-human? - appears on their property. His worst nightmares realized, Pietari is moved to action and must try and save his friends and family before the evil Santa Claus and his horde of elves can lay waste to them.
Director Jalmari Helander’s film is a modern twist on an old folktale that at its core is a touching story about the wild imagination of children and the strength of familial bonds. If you took out some of the bad language (and all of the full-frontal male nudity, of which there is a lot in the form of Santa’s undead helpers), you could easily see this film — with its soaring score and bright, crisp colors — entertaining both young and old here at multiplexes in the states come Christmas time.
Helander’s film was preceded by the short “Unholy Night,” an Icelandic tale of one of the countries thirteen incarnations of Santa - Meathook Santa (who is a real figure in Icelandic folk tales) - who is not a nice man at all. The appropriately named Santa haunts a group of friends in a remote cabin and does quite a bit of damage.
Following the screening, “Rare Exports” co-writer Juuson Helander and “Unholy Night” writer Omar Hauksson took questions from TwitchFilm’s Todd Brown and the audience and discussed the dark Santa-related folk tales of their respective countries. By way of introduction, Brown correctly said that “Rare Exports” had the “most male frontal nudity ever included in any children’s story.”
When asked by an audience member how the filmmakers were able to convince a bunch of out-of-shape middle-aged men to run around naked in the woods for their movie, Helander succinctly responded, “I’m from Europe.”
Both films screen again together at 11:45 a.m. on Tuesday at Alamo South.
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