Risingshadow has the honour of publishing a guest post by Jonathan Maas.
Jonathan Maas is a writer living in Los Angeles. He has three books reviewed by Risingshadow: City of Gods: Hellenica, Spanners: The Fountain of Youth, and Flare, each one of which has cover illustration by the extraordinarily talented Manthos Lappas. Jonathan Maas has also directed an independent movie, Spanners, which is the prequel to the book.
Links
Jonathan Maas' Amazon author page.
Jonathan Maas' blog: Deviant Stories.
GUEST POST: 3 Literary Lessons from the Movie 'Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale' by Jonathan Maas
There’s a mind-blowing movie that came out of Risingshadow.net’s native Finland in 2010, and though you might not have heard of it, it definitely deserves to be added to your DVD queue. It's called Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale, and though it’s a tad creepy, it’s so well done that it's disturbing premise ends up being a whole lot of fun.
But Rare Exports is more than just a good movie. It brings an energy to the screen that we’ve not yet seen before, and does things that other movies haven’t dared to do.
And its well-told tale holds quite a few things to learn from as well, especially if you’re a writer or filmmaker. Even if you’re not, it still has quite a bit to teach you, so read the spoiler-free lessons below, and see if any of them can bring your goals to the next level.
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Get a Premise that Breaks the Rules - In Rare Exports the protagonists, led by the young and preternaturally likeable Onni Tommila, come across an unearthed Santa Claus, and Santa turns out to be an evil entity who is out to punish bad children.
Santa Claus as evil - think about that! We've heard the tale of St. Nicholas countless times, but never once has he been an antagonist!
This premise could easily become hackneyed and improbable, but director Jalmari Helander handles it with care, and it remains solid and convincing throughout.
So if you’re starting to write a book, it may be tempting to rely on the familiar: A vampire falls in love with a mortal. A hardened detective has a drinking problem. An elf shoots arrows at trolls.
But if you want to be unique, make your premise break the rules just like Rare Exports does. Put your vampire on a reserve, and have him hunted by mortals for sport. Have your hardened detective be a cross-dresser at night. Have your elf try to negotiate peace with the trolls via dialogue and diplomacy.
It might be difficult, it might be unfamiliar, and it might not completely work. But if you break the rules and stick with it, you might just end up with something as unique as Rare Exports.
You can be Creepy and Still Allow Your Audience to Have Fun - There's not a single 'jump scare' in Rare Exports. The young hero Pietari is in grave danger from the beginning, but nothing is going to jump out at him (let alone reveal itself to be 'just a cat' shortly thereafter, as so many films often choose to do)!
When Pietari opens a door to reveal the antagonist, the bad guy is generally a hundred feet away, clearly visible and moving slowly. The hero, and thus the viewer, are not in immediate danger, and can always escape if need be.
The principal antagonist, played by Peeter Jakobi, is creepy
but moves slowly and never ‘jumps out’ at the viewer.
Jump scares can be valuable if employed correctly (the jump scares in Seven and Martyrs will stick with you for years), but Jalmari Helander made the decision to forgo them altogether, and it makes the movie eminently watchable. The audience can relax and enjoy the film, from the first frame to the last. The stakes are high and danger surely lurks around every corner, but neither the hero nor the filmgoer need fear that something is going scare them.
The lesson? Don't rely on the 'quick and easy' tropes to elicit your audience's reaction. You can be creepy and scary, but you needn’t sacrifice fun to make it so.
Take your Rule-Breaking Premise to the Next Level - I can't expound further on this lest I reveal a spoiler, but let’s just say that the premise of 'Santa being the bad guy' is just ... the tip of the iceberg.
In the third act, they give a truly magnificent reveal that takes the whole film to another level, and takes the already-broken rules, and breaks them further.
It’s not a simple plot twist, it’s an elevation of the film’s premise to another plane of understanding.
And I can’t expound on it further lest I give too many details away. All I can say is that once your work is 100% complete, watch Rare Exports and try to find the courage to consider taking your work to 125%. It’s worth a shot.
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That’s it! Rare Exports is not only a great film, but one that has a lot to teach you, whether you’re a writer, filmmaker or anything else. Regardless of what you want to do, please watch the movie. You won’t regret it.