A couple of Christmases ago I took a punt on a film I knew
very little about on a trip to our local, and excellent, Art House Cinema;
Cornerhouse in Manchester.
The film was Rare Exports and the
gamble paid off. Rare Exports is the
sort of oddly engaging and original film which only comes around a couple of
times a year. The story was daring and unique and the acting, cinematography
and direction were all excellent too. Fast forward almost exactly two years and
I watched the film for a second time and while I still enjoyed the unusual Fairy
tail like story and darkly comic script, some of the shock and awe which
accompanied my first viewing had dissipated.
On the Finnish side of the Finland-Russia border, high in
the Arctic Circle, a team of foreign scientists
and excavators are carrying out experiments on top of a mountain which
overlooks a small village home to Pietari (Onni Tommila) and his father Rauno (Jorma
Tommila). The head of the excavation one day announces that they have unearthed
the largest burial mound on the planet, something which Pietari believes may be
the final resting place of Santa Claus, and not the Americanised Coca-cola
Santa but the original, child eating Santa. Pietari’s suspicions begin to take
further shape when first all the Reindeer are found slaughtered and then the
local children begin disappearing.
