Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale at the IFC Center

New York is a cinephile's paradise; every night, movies from avant-garde obscurity to repertory classics to Hollywood hits flicker across its screens. And sometimes a creative theater programmer will nab a movie that occupies its own category. Such is the case with Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale, now playing at the IFC Center. To put it baldly, this is the craziest movie showing in the five boroughs: geologists in Lapland unearth the actual Santa Claus, who turns out to be a horned monster that punishes children, and a gang of hardscrabble locals capture one of Santa's elves for ransom. Children tote shotguns and leap from helicopters, naked old men run through the snow flinging ice axes, and the only food anyone eats is gingerbread. With Christmas trees for sale on the sidewalk just outside the theater, who wouldn't feel the magic of the season?

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