RARE EXPORTS: A CHRISTMAS TALE
When: 7 & 9 p.m. Mon-Tue. Where: Trylon.
This Finnish film (★★ out of four stars) offers a counterweight to the usual yuletide sentimentality. Pietari, a plucky Lapland preteen, spies on a mining outfit excavating a giant Kris Kringle-shaped burial mound near his remote home. He reads up on Sami folk tales about the old guy; it's not a pretty picture. Meanwhile his dad, a reindeer hunter with a struggling slaughterhouse business, digs a spike-lined pit to trap the creature that has been gutting his stock. Could there be a connection? And who's stealing all the village's radiators? The film is bracingly suspenseful, packed with perverse humor and great to look at, with an icebound, rundown production design reminiscent of John Carpenter's "The Thing." The finale is a riotous affair that must set a world's record for geriatric male nudity. Even as you view it you can't believe what you're seeing. (Rated R; in subtitled Finnish and English.) COLIN COVERT
