rare exports – finland (2010)

Rare Exports

Yesterday was the last day of March, so I thought it the ideal time to watch a Christmas film – or at least a film about Santat Claus

UIt may well be about Christmas, but there’s nothing fluffy about it at all.  This is a horror film, but almost a comedy noir.  I have to admit, I found myself shaking my head a few times as i wasn’t altogether sure what I was making of it.

Excavations are happening on the Korvatunturi mountain, and Pietari and his friend Juuso climb through a hole in the fencing to find out what’s going on – but the American excavation team release something that nobody knew was under all the rock.

With children disappearing, and the adults of his town left with no idea how to deal with the strange goings-on, it falls down to Pietari to devise a cunning plan to tackle the ultimate Bad Santa.

This film was genuinely creepy in places, and the boy playing Pietari was fantastic.  The idea of Santa knowing which children were naughty or nice…and then tearing the naughty ones limb from limb appealed to me somewhat

This is definitely no polished Hollywood blockbuster – but hell, who wants them when you can have creepy old men’s willies (yes, that  was one shower scene that was more horrific than the rest of the film put together!)

My rating – 7.5/10

the howling miller – arto paasilinna

The Howling Miller

I really enjoyed this book, there’s a simple innocence to it.  I’m not sure whether that is just because of the simpler time and place that it is set (a small woodside village in Finland just after WWII) or because it has been translated from Finnish, which could mean that the language has been made more simple due to translation.

Whatever the reason, it was perfectly charming even though it was dealing with a quite difficult subject.

An ‘outsider’ moves into the mill in this small village, and starts doing it up.  the villagers are glad that they are now able to make use of the mill, but the miller suffers from bouts of depression which make him act rather unpredictably and often culminate in him howling in the woods.

Some of the villagers think he should be sent to a lunatic asylum, but there are others who are rather won over by his general good nature.

I wasn’t so sure on the ending.  It didn’t finish in the way that I would have liked, but I guess that’s good as it wasn’t predictable.  I honestly couldn’t see the ending coming a mile off.  Part of me wonders whether the author wasn’t quite sure how to finish, as it kind of descended into a folklore feel which wasn’t evident through the rest of the story.