A Rare Finnish Export?

"Just before the first snow of winter falls, professional hunters begin their work. The long process of tracking, hunting and transforming this king of the forest into a finished product is a time consuming process, but the final outcome is a reason to celebrate" Rare Exports Inc. 

I first came across the Rare Exports short films about five years ago in London at a Finnish film festival at the Barbican. In amongst the subtitled darkness of Louhimies' Paha Maa ('Frozen Land' - although paha literally translates as bad or evil) and a brace of painterly and bleak yet comedic Kaurismäki's* (such as Kauas pilvet karkaavat or 'Drifting Clouds') were two short interlopers directed by Jalmari Healander revealing the 'real' story behind Finland's most famous seasonal and rare export... (which can both be seen here)



Now there is a full length feature also released in UK, so if any of you in Blighty get a chance to see it do - and experience some seasonal Finnish language and humor with the advantage of english sub-titles where needed (unlike us poor english speaking Helsinki dwellers).  While it hasn't had the best reviews, mainly because the ending doesn't quite live up to the rest of the film, it still raises a (dark) chuckle or two.

Actually this is the first Finnish language film I have been to see at the cinema here, I've watched plenty on DVD with subtitles, and have got used to Finnish & Swedish sub-titles on English language films, but was pleasantly surprised at how well I followed suomeksi (Stadi Helsinki slang in Lapland anyone?). And no, the ruotsi sub titles really weren't much help!


UK dwellers can use this to find where 'Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale' can be seen, tai jos olette suomessa - mene Finnkinoon!


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* Aki is apparently famous for saying in that he directed half of his films while sober and half when drunk, and yet nobody can tell the difference.  Also, for all you Finnish language students, it's worth remembering that as his character's usually speak 'hypercorrect literary language' (which is pretty much never spoken in real life) and also say very little anyway, it makes his films good practice for watching with the sub-titles turned off.