Blair Re-Reviews: Rare Exports

Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale (2010)

Runtime: 84 minutes

Directed by: Jalmari Helander

Starring: Onni Tommila, Jorma Tommila, Tommi Korpela, Per Christian Ellefsen

From: Cinet

Here's something I did once before but that was a long while ago; I decided to do over a review after seeing a film for a second time. In this case it was the strange Finnish movie known as Rare Exports, which is an alternate take on the Santa Claus mythos. Time hasn't been kind to it. The Letterboxd review is below and I'll be back tomorrow night:

This is another review I am doing over; originally I had something up but it was short and put up in the first few days I was a member of this site. I've been wanting to rewatch this film as it left me disappointed but yet I still gave it an average rating; viewing it again, why did I even rate it that high?

This is what I originally wrote: "This movie went in directions I was not expecting. I was hoping for more with the kids hanging out with each other and less of the boy and his father doing the tired cliched arguing with each other thing, and the ending also doesn't really work. It isn't bad by any means but it is overrated compared to all the praise this has attached to it."

Seeing it for a second (and for sure final) time, why do so many people give this good-or better-reviews? I just don't get it. Sure, I see that more people-at least here-are noting how it's “boring” and that's certainly a valid complaint but there's still too many positive reviews and I don't get it.

I should start at the beginning and explain what this is if you are unaware: the movie is set in northern Finland right by the Russian border, and the focus is on a young boy known as Pietari and his father; Pie also has a friend who's a few years older named Juuso. Basically, the grave of Santa Claus is discovered and he's dug up, only he's not jolly old Saint Nick; rather, he's like the old Krampus legend of Central Europe and he's actually evil.

That story on paper sounds interesting, seeing an evil Santa slaughter people. How they did it, though... blah. As mentioned already it can be argued that there are many dull moments in a film less than 90 minutes long. The big issue is that the story and the way it's presented is not what you'd expect, and that is unfortunate as they did it in a dumb and unexciting and disappointing way. I won't get into spoilers but I really wish the story would have actually been fun.

The fact that the stuff with the two boys was cool but you get so little of it and instead the focus is on the cliché story of the father and son and the dad is a dick who never listens to his kid and always treats him like crap... I really didn't like that. Then when things finally get going, it just ends up with a whimper and it feels like the cool concept they presented here got totally wasted and it should have been much more. Oh, and the majority of the characters here act really stupid most of the time, just because the script tells them so.

I don't plan on seeing too many holiday-related films this month but when I do I'll try for them to be better or at least more interesting than this overrated dreck.