An extraordinary documentary, shot and edited like a Scandi realist drama, Blue Collar White Christmas  blurs the genre’s margins in striking ways. Centered on a small group of employees at a lifeboat factory who are threatened with pre-Yule pink-slipping, pic is neither traditional docudrama nor straight reportage, more a decanting of true events into a smarter-looking bottle. The Viking lifeboat factory is a key employer in the small town. So when the management announces in the lead-up to Christmas 2001 that it will be “operating at a lower level,” the employees’ settled lives start to look less settled. Director Max Kestner and d.p. Henrik Ipsen present everything in a managed, visually planned way. Audience has to continually remind itself that this is not a scripted feature film a la Ken Loach — and in the very last scene the filmmakers have one delightful, Hans Christian Andersen-like trick up their sleeves.
Derek Elley