I would openly admit that over the last few years, Christmas has started to mean a little less to me than it did. It's maybe just the nadir of my mid-twenties as I get to the point that I've seen a lot of them now, it could just be that this time of year doesn't play well with cynicism. I don't know. It's just where I'm at right now. But despite this, the one thing that I do love about Christmas is the movies.
I doubt this is surprising: I mean, I'm writing this article for a film and TV blog called Literally Geeking. If that doesn't suggest a certain amount of nerdiness about the medium of film then what would? But even then, when you look at the kind of shows and movies that I would normally watch over the course of the year, there's not a exactly a strong streak of sentimentality through them – and that's something you normally can't move for in Christmas movies.
Even Die Hard is essentially a story about an estranged father trying to spend the holiday with his family. John McClane can shoot all the terrorists and walk through all the broken glass he wants, but the giant teddy bear in the back of his limo still marks him as a soppy bastard. Ho Ho Ho he just wants his kids back.
This is one of the two most common features of Christmas movies: family and learning. One of the two always has to happen – a family (whether it be blood relations or just a group of friends) has to come together; or someone needs to learn about the true meaning of Christmas. All of the classic holiday films share at least one of these elements: It's A Wonderful Life; Miracle on 34th Street; Home Alone; The Grinch. Many of them have both.
The weird thing is, you can't even put this pattern down to typical Hollywood syrup. The clear start point for it all was that bleak bastard himself Charles Dickens. If Ebenezer Scrooge hadn't seen the light all the way back in the 1843 then who knows what kind of entertainment we'd end up turning to on these dark December nights.
Anyway, this has been a long, roundabout kind of way to get to the point I particularly wanted to make: Finnish film Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale may well be my new favourite Christmas movie.
For those of you who haven't had a chance to see it, the film tells the story of a young boy Pietari whose Christmas takes a strange turn when excavations on a nearby mountain turn up a strange discovery.
Although you'd be hard pressed to call the film traditional in any way, shape or form due to it's unrelentingly dark sense of humour and it's copious amount of full frontal male nudity, it shares the same warm, beating heart as all the greats of the form.
The success of the film comes from the fact that despite all the batshit crazy shenanigans and blood-soaked imagery, the really truly important thing going on here is the relationship between Pietari and his father and how, through the events of the film they grow that much closer and come to appreciate each other all the more. What's more, you really come to route for Pietari in his quest to make everyone understand what they have gotten themselves in for.
I'll stop there so that I won't spoil it any more that I need to, but if you want to watch something a little different this Christmas, this one comes highly recommended.
An awesome addition to the pantheon of great, sentimental, Christmas movies.
Check out the trailer below:
Hey Kenneth thanks for your post :) Your image doesn't seem to be showing up though so you might want to alter it.
ReplyDelete