Tired of the usual Christmas Day movie fare – “Not Die Hard again, Dad!”? If you’re looking for some very different festive viewing, here are three great Nordic options that will add just the right amount of Nordic noir and even, in one case, ho-ho-horror to the Yuletide season.
Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale
Finnish movie Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale (2010), screening on NITV and at SBS On Demand, stars several child actors but is definitely not aimed at children.
Christmas is fast approaching but, in one small Lapland village within the Arctic Circle, Pietari Kontio (Onni Tommila) is filled with dread, not joy.
The young boy knows Santa Claus isn’t a jolly fat man in a red suit climbing down chimneys and delivering presents. Through his extensive research, he’s convinced the real Santa is a mythical horned creature who kidnaps and punishes bad kids every year.
“The real Santa was totally different,” he tells his disbelieving friend Juuso (Ilmari Järvenpää). “The Coca-Cola Santa is just a hoax.”
Carrying a hunting rifle and wearing an ice hockey helmet for protection, Pietari spends each night in his bedroom on guard in case he’s caught unawares by the ancient monster.
Pietari’s dad Rauno (played by his real-life father Jorma Tommila) – a reindeer herder – is concerned by increased wolf activity in the area, which he believes has been brought on by an American research team’s repeated use of explosives at a nearby mountain. The researchers unearth an ancient burial mound and make the mistake of opening it, setting off a series of events that threaten every child in the village.
‘Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale’. Source: SBS On Demand
On Christmas Eve, Rauno checks the wolf pit he’s built next to his house and finds a naked old man trapped down it. He has a white beard and his nose twitches when in the presence of gingerbread and naughty children. Rauno and his neighbours soon learn the feral pensioner also has a taste for human flesh. Could this be the Santa Claus of legend or merely a servant of a more malevolent creature?
Rare Exports – with Finnish and English spoken throughout – successfully treads a fine line between horror, fantastical whimsy and black comedy. It was written and directed by Jalmari Helander, and is based on his shorts Rare Exports Inc. (2003) and The Official Rare Exports Inc. Safety Instructions (2005). Helander assures people that Rare Exports is indeed a Christmas film.
“It is about a real Christmas,” he tells . “It is about a family and real things, not all the candy and decorations. I love Christmas!”
He might love Christmas, but Helander ensures that viewers may never look at Santa Claus in the same way again.
Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale airs at 9.10pm on NITV, Saturday 25 December. The film is also now streaming at SBS On Demand.
All I Want For Christmas
For those who prefer more family-friendly fare – and are fans of the Harry Potter series – 2018’s fantasy-adventure All I Want For Christmas at SBS On Demand is just the ticket.
The Danish-language film is the story of tween Lucia (Ella Testa Kusk), who lives with her mum Claudia (Mia Lyhne) and her dad Julius (Martin Buch), aka Santa Claus. She desperately wants to follow in his footsteps, but due to the sexist rules enforced by the Council Of Elders, who run the International Santa Claus School, female students aren’t allowed to learn the craft. Even her dad agrees that being Santa is men’s work.
“It’s Father Christmas, not Mother Christmas,” he admonishes her on the way to school. “Nobody believes in Mother Christmas.”
But when Lucia wins a school raffle that grants her a Christmas wish, she demands the right to be admitted into Santa class. Appalled, the Council comes up with a seemingly impossible quest to thwart Lucia’s demand. She must grant a wish to a human boy called Albert (Peter Sejer Winther) whose father is mysteriously ill after he was attacked during an archaeological expedition. He wants a cure for his dad, a wish that leads Lucia to confront the hideous Krampus, a monster with a terrible secret involving the Council Of Elders.
All I Want For Christmas is now streaming at SBS On Demand.
All I Want For Christmas 2
The 2020 film All I Want For Christmas 2, at SBS On Demand, picks up Lucia’s story a few years after the events of the first movie. She’s now one of the top students in Santa School and her best friend is the socially awkward Oscar (Bertil Smith).
A visit by King Winter (Henning Jensen) to use his magic blue crystal to start the School’s gift-making machine goes awry when the crystal goes missing and Oscar is accused of stealing it.
Lucia embarks on a mission to find the stolen crystal, prove her friend’s innocence and defeat the true culprits, a sinister cult called The Grey Brethren, who are hell-bent on destroying the crystal and the spirit of Christmas forever. But just when it seems she’s succeeded, a new danger emerges that forces Lucia and her parents to travel to a mystical icebound place known as The Eternal Winter to save Oscar’s life.
All I Want For Christmas 2 is now streaming at SBS On Demand.
